Brightest Shadow
by Tirfarthuan
Summary: Foiling an attempted kidnaping leaves Shikako Nara and a few allies temporarily stranded in another universe. But for a member of the Lucky Sevens, nothing is ever simple. The Black Light of Death rises, and in order to defeat it, the White Light seeks a method to affect the physical plane... and finds one in Shikako, however unwilling. A Dreaming of Sunshine x DC crossover.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

So, this is the first significant bit of creative writing I've done in… years at this point.

For those who want to know what's happening with Graceful Degradation: I've got a plan to end the current arc and I hope to finish it off this summer. My initial plans for the story included going on all the way through StrikerS timeline-wise, but I'm thinking I'll probably just post my plans for the story after A's rather than leaving everyone hanging. I honestly don't know if I'll ever write the story out in its entirety, but it probably won't happen anytime soon.

I wrote this up in a week of inspiration on the Dreaming of Sunshine forums, and it was recommended that I publish it as a proper story. To be clear, this is already written in full, though the editing process means I will not publish the entire thing at once.

This is a crossover between Dreaming of Sunshine (a Naruto fanfiction found on this site) and an alternate DC Earth (not one of the canonical ones). Suffice to say for now that this is a Justice League version of Earth. I'll post an abbreviated summary of the state of Earth-? (as I've taken to calling it) in an author's note at the start of the chapter where I introduce the first DC characters.

Reading Dreaming of Sunshine is recommended and familiarity with DC mythos is also a plus, but the handful of DC neophytes on the forum didn't have trouble. Simply understand that I'm playing fast and loose with certain portions of the DC mythos to tell this story.

Now that I've scared off three-quarters of my potential reader-base (the author says optimistically), let's get started.

* * *

The ten man squad was composed of a four man barrier team, a four man combat team, and two specialists.

Their equivalents in Hidden Leaf would be ANBU, but Hidden Cloud used a different name for their organization. But that was not relevant to the situation. What was relevant was that they were engaged in black ops. As such, the barrier team was very orthodox. Effective, of course, but their four point barriers could have been created by just about anyone. That was the point. Similarly, the combat team kept to basic sword skills, projectiles, and standard C rank or lower ninjutsu. They were, in principle, unidentifiable as a result. In practice, Kumo's obvious superiority as swordsmen and swordswomen was a clue. But not a provable clue.

The two specialists were not ANBU equivalents, but they wore concealing masks and dark clothes just like the rest. Their skill sets were highly identifiable, but very necessary for the mission. They were to be referred to as Ichi and Ni for the duration.

'Ichi' was the most important. As far as Daisuke understood, they were a space-time ninjutsu specialist of some sort. They had some method of opening portals between parallel worlds. The barrier team was there to protect him for the minute or so it took him to open a portal, though they were not expected to be necessary if all went well. The combat team was there to suppress the target and any enemies that followed the target after Ichi opened a portal into the heart of Konoha.

Daisuke was 'Ni'. He was lightning user with a niche in a type of plasma manipulation. It wouldn't be accurate to say that Daisuke was conventionally good at it - for regular missions his powerful but sloppy effects were middling. But he could slam a couple of miles around him with a very respectable electromagnetic pulse. Which didn't have many applications in the Elemental Nations, but on 'Earth'... well. It shut down the most common surveillance and pursuit methods of the locals rather nicely. If the locals wanted to get in the way, it was Daisuke's job to deal with it in a better way than leaving a trail of corpses. After all, they might want to do this again another time.

To minimize the risks, they had travelled on the 'Earth' side from just within the borders of Lightning Country. They were now in a small copse located near a residential district. A large city, important to the local government, was to the north. They had spent about three days traveling to get here, and seemed to have avoided scrutiny. Electrical power was widespread here, as was vehicles burning energy dense hydrocarbons for fuel. Locals would be able to call upon air assets fairly easily, but that was another reason to have Daisuke around. Locals would generally be relying on chemically powered subsonic speed projectile launchers unless the squad seriously screwed up and got a lot of attention on them, which wasn't a serious problem in the hands of civilians with unenhanced reflexes and senses and no ability to resist genjutsu. The local ninja equivalents were thin on the ground. Daisuke was unsure of the details beyond that - he was the low man on the totem pole, so to speak, and his low clearance had given him only the general idea of what was going on. The specifics of the world Ichi was using was not his concern.

The mission was to appropriate a Main House member of the Hyuuga clan. An infiltrator had managed to place a locating seal for Ichi to home in on, and Ichi was currently verifying that nothing had gone wrong. It seemed that the target still bore the seal, and there was a festival scheduled for today that they were hoping to take advantage of. The plan seemed set to go ahead.

The target was currently accompanied by a juvenile member of the Aburame clan, Ichi signaled. An overwatch was probably present, which intelligence suggested would consist of several branch members of the Hyuuga clan, but the Konoha ninjas were overconfident in their defenses. None were in the range of the seal. The barrier team stood back, and the combat team moved into position while Ichi concentrated.

Daisuke stood back with the barrier team, trying not to nervously adjust the mask he'd been given for the mission, and was forced to avert his eyes from what Ichi was doing - he couldn't look at it. It was just... his eyes rebelled at the sight and a migraine pulsed for several heartbeats until he looked away. Ichi signaled that two more chakra signatures were in range of the portal. Neither had the high chakra reserves indicative of the elite, though one was notably stronger than the other three expected to be caught. The combat team leader signed back that they would suppress the strongest one first. Ichi was to cancel his technique and retreat to the barrier team as soon as the Hyuuga was entrapped.

Daisuke swallowed heavily. The moment of truth was coming. If this went well, Kumo would be strengthened, though the methodology was unfortunately distasteful, however necessary it was. If it went poorly, Hidden Leaf would seize the excuse to escalate to war. He hoped it didn't come to that just yet. It was likely inevitable, with Hidden Leaf refusing to see reason and back down, but Kumo needed more time to prepare. If Hidden Leaf could not be crushed immediately once the fools pushed the situation to open warfare, a Fourth War might well result, and nobody wanted that.

Space twisted-

* * *

Two bodies hit the ground with a wet thump. Daisuke blinked dumbly, unsure what had happened, that was. That was half the combat squad that had- They'd hit. She hadn't had a chance to dodge, they'd done the sword equivalent of a double lariat, she shouldn't be moving what-

But he didn't keep track of the young girl who had struck those blows properly, and by the time he caught up she was engaged with a third member of the team. The fourth spat a fireball at the Aburame, who despite her young age had managed to set a small cloud of kikaichu into the air already. Another girl, with thick glasses and braids grabbed the Aburame and tumbled away across the ground - both out of the fight for the next couple of seconds, though mostly unharmed. The little girl- the target leapt in with a glowing hand and the combat specialist skipped back slightly. The barrier squad moved in as Ichi tried to move out, they'd want to trap the Hyuuga thoroughly, couldn't risk her getting hurt in the battle-

Daisuke glanced back to the ongoing fight, the girl struck out with a handful of sharp metal and her back foot, was that a seal-

-flash blinded, he tried to move away, couldn't be a target but he wasn't moving right what was, no! "Nara," someone yelled but-

Slightly cool metal. A sharp edge of pain buried in his neck. Warmth spills out, and leaves him feeling so very cold.

* * *

Shiho tumbles hard, cradling little Chiyako with her body and trying not to lose her glasses. She doesn't understand what's going on, Shikako had sensed something and the four of them had tried to get away but Shikako had been sliced up but she couldn't think about that because she had to save Chiyako-

But somehow, when she looked up after the searing blast of light and sound, Shikako was still fighting and she kept pulling weapons from somewhere in her yukata and there were masked forms limply hitting the ground. Hanabi was backpedaling futilely away from three more enemies and Shiho didn't have a weapon, she didn't even have pockets, and she couldn't think of any useful jutsu-

Then Hanabi was surrounded by dead bodies and Shikako had taken her place, and Hanabi clearly knew what to do even if Shiho didn't because she ran over towards Chiyako who was huddling behind Shiho, like Shiho could protect her when Shiho could only think that she could maybe buy Chiyako a few seconds with her body if they got attacked, and calling out as much of a swarm as her little body was carrying-

And one of the ninjas tried to go for Hanabi but Shikako threw faster than they could run (no, Shikako's shadow threw, or, no was that right?) and Shiho sighed in relief as a barrier formed around the three of them once the four kunai hit down in place and the enemy slammed into the wall of light and bounced back and everything around Shikako vanished in a roar-

Shiho only looked away for a moment to check on Hanabi, not wanting to see Shikako- to see her-

But she was fighting the last, the one who had been stopped by the barrier and they were really fast, but somehow Shikako wasn't hurt at all and they were really really fast and must have had some sort of armor or something because Shikako's kunai weren't doing anything, but then this big windmill shuriken somehow came from a different direction and the enemy had to move but Shikako's shadow rose up behind them and-

And everything was very quiet. Shikako stumbled, looking very tired, but she didn't fall. She didn't seem hurt, though Shiho couldn't imagine how she had accomplished such a feat.

"Hanabi, are there any others?" Shikako was holding a sword hilt, now, but Shiho couldn't see a blade. Was that... She'd heard that Shikako had the Lord Second's blade, but that had just been a rumor until tonight.

"I can't see any active chakra systems but ours within half a mile," Hanabi said solemnly, the veins in her temples bulging with the power of her all-seeing white eyes. "And there are as many bodies as there were ambushers at the start."

Shikako walked over to the barrier, canceled it, and pulled a small armory out of her sleeves. "I don't have any combat uniforms your sizes. Can you manage in your current clothes?"

Shiho swallowed. "I, yes, I can move freely." The parts of her yukata that would have gotten in the way had been destroyed at some point, so she turned the remains into a shirt and grabbed at the proffered weaponry. Hanabi and Chiyako got to work on modifying theirs with kunai and bandages, so that they could be decent and reach weapons pouches tied to their thighs. Shikako seemed to transition into full combat dress in one swift movement.

Shiho had never really appreciated the difference in skill level between herself and a special jounin until now. She tried not to think about the bodies.

Shikako approached the nearest, mostly intact one. "Hanabi, I'll need you to keep your Byakugan active for now. Let me know when you start to tire."

Shiho looked towards the Hyuuga, who gave a muted noise of assent. The little girl was only trembling a little. She was being so very brave.

Shikako knelt down, and pried open the corpses jaw, then, strangely, seemed to relax a little. Maybe? Shiho was probably just imagining it. The Nara bit her thumb, blurred through a set of hand signs, and slammed a bloodied palm onto the ground beside her. Ink webbed out, and there was a cracking sound and a small puff of smoke appeared, but nothing seemed to happen as far as Shiho could tell. Shikako nodded, as if expecting as much.

"They used a space-time ninjutsu." Shikako informed them. "The natural energy here is... different. And…" She looked up at the stars above, what little could be seen in spite of the strange amount of light pollution. "The sky is also different. Assume that we are no longer within the borders of the Land of Fire. Given that my summoning went unanswered, which mere distance should not be a hindrance to, I suspect we have transitioned to another world."

"Can you get us back, Nee-chan?" Chiyako asked nervously. Her swarm buzzed a little as they spread out to look around.

"I suspect so." Shikako said calmly. "I didn't understand how we were targeted at first, but Hanabi, let me have a look at the back of your yukata for a moment, and... there it is. A seal... This may take a little while, but... yes, I can work backwards from this. It might take a week or more, since I'll have to test the seal as I develop it, but it is definitely possible for us to return."

Shiho sighed in relief, Chiyako clapped her hands together, and Hanabi smirked slightly, before frowning. "We will have to deal with the infiltrator responsible," the little Hyuuga intoned.

"Oh, I think we can let our ANBU have their fun with that," Shikako said with a smile. "Now, you stay with Shiho-sempai while I deal with the bodies, okay? Then we'll go lay low for a bit. Who knows what kind of world this is, after all."

* * *

In which: Cloud has a space-time ninjutsu hobbyist get lucky for once and learn how to make inter-universal portals (and immediately squander this rather than trying to play well with others), chaotic ninja-battles ensue when they accidentally bring along a very combat-capable tokubetsu jounin during their attempted kidnaping, and a cryptologist and two academy students find themselves experiencing their first Team Seven Experience.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes:

This one consists of the second and third snips I posted, but I modified the stuff from the third snip fairly heavily. Thanks, in particular, to Laural Rose who pointed out that this was probably the weakest part of the story as it was initially written.

I think it's a whole lot stronger now.

* * *

Once the bodies were stored away in black-marked scrolls, and all of the weaponry was collected, they vacated the area with haste.

Shikako-neechan carried them bodily, one by one, to a nearby green space, perhaps a mile away. Chiyako was impressed: her feet left no impression, not even so much as a bent blade of grass, while nee-chan's chakra wrapped tightly around them both, to keep from leaving a scent trail she guessed. As Shiho set herself down by a tree, distant sirens approached the now empty site of battle. Too slow by far. The sounds were moving fast, but by the time they arrived, let alone started looking this far afield, the Konoha natives would be long gone.

Shikako-neechan needed to scout out their next move, so she covered the three of them in a genjutsu and gave them a kunai with an attached flashbang tag. They could throw it and call her back if they needed to, but this was pretty clearly a civilian region according to Hanabi's eyes and Shikako-neechan's chakra sense. Chiyako would have sent out kikaichu, but with her swarm depleted like this it was best to just lay low... but the point was, they shouldn't run into immediate difficulties. That might change in a few hours, but for now they were safe enough.

They just needed to stay still and quiet. But without being able to talk to distract herself, it was nerve-wracking. Chiyako momentarily worried about whether Shikako-neechan would make it back, before shaking her head vehemently. Nee-chan was strong. Really, really strong. Chiyako had thought she was strong like Shino-nii, but she was way stronger than that. Those enemy ANBU hadn't stood a chance, even though they were also strong.

She felt Shiho reach around her with one arm, and she melted into the older girl's warmth. Shiho had a kunai clutched in a white knuckled grip with her free arm, ready to fight if necessary. Shiho wasn't strong like Shikako-neechan, but she was still stronger than Chiyako. She thought Shino-nii was probably stronger than her, though. But Shiho had still been plenty amazing enough to save her.

Hanabi sat on Shiho's other side, eyes bulging with the power of the byakugan, with the flashbang kunai in her hands. She'd be the first to see danger, so Chiyako guessed it made sense. Hanabi was doing a lot to help, had even attacked the enemy ANBU even though... They hadn't talked about it, but they all knew Hanabi had been the target. The evil ANBU had been there to steal her away so they could tear out her eyes and... do things to Hanabi. The kind of things Mama had told Chiyako about, even though she hadn't really wanted to because it was terrible, but there were things girls needed to know, especially when they were special girls whose children would also be special.

She shivered, and cupped her hand around the friendship bracelet Shikako-neechan had given her so that she could make it shine with a little pulse of chakra without making them visible. She didn't want to be in a situation like this ever again. She wanted to be strong like Shikako-neechan, who had protected everyone without being hurt. She wanted to be brave like Hanabi, who hadn't hesitated in attacking the kidnappers, not even for an instant in spite of knowing what evil things they wanted to do to her. She wanted to be selfless like Shiho, who had lunged towards a fireball to protect her without a second thought. She wanted to shine with the Will of Fire, bright enough that the dark things in the world flinched back from her rather than the reverse.

Nee-chan landed softly on the ground in front of them. "I've found an unoccupied residence that we can hole up in, at least for now. We can set up another genjutsu, get some proper rest. I'll take first watch and get started on the seal, then I'll pass watch off to Shiho in a couple of hours so that I can regain some chakra, alright?"

Chiyako smiled. Nee-chan was really amazing. Idly, she wondered what sort of girls Shino-nii liked. Well, 'like'-liked. Everyone that knew Shikako-neechan liked her, because she was amazing. Someday, Chiyako promised herself, she was going to be as strong and kind and wise as nee-chan.

* * *

Hanabi surveyed the house, picking out the strange and the familiar in its construction. Some of it was subtle (different binding agents and plumbing) and in other ways very blatant (such as the usage of electrical power and the strange tendency towards large glass windows). It was a building that was not only unoccupied, but seemingly had never been occupied - Shikako suggested that it was likely constructed either on commission from an owner not yet arrived, or was on the market. Either way, they might have to move, but she felt that they would probably be fine for the time they were in this dimension, though they might have to dupe civilians with genjutsu. Much like entering the allegedly secure house, this was rather like taking candy from a proverbial baby.

Speaking of food, Shikako passed around rations from her apparently inexhaustible supplies, as well as a canteen. Ration bars, ugh. But they needed the calories after tonight.

As they settled down, and Shikako examined the seal she had found on Hanabi, the little Hyuuga queried the special jounin on her thoughts rather than immediately going to sleep.

"My gravity seals have some similarities..." Shikako hummed to herself. "You probably will find this a bit strange, but... gravity isn't really a force. It's space-time distortion. Mass bends the universe around it. It's not common for use in jutsu because it's esoteric and misunderstood - try to do gravity manipulation like electromagnetism and it just won't work right. But with seals I can affect it a bit, with a bit of cleverness. To make the portal I need to make a well in the fabric of this universe's space-time, and make a divot in the fabric of our universe, and then force the edges to align. The middle of the portal will then just be a regular region of space-time, but connecting the two universes so we can just pass through. The tricky bit will be getting the boundaries right so that it will be safe and reliable, so I will have to experiment."

Hanabi... thought that made sense, though she was still in the dark on the mechanics. The important bit was-

"How long do you think it will take?"

Shikako pulled out a piece of paper and carefully drew a series of symbols on it, then charged it with chakra. The air above it pulsed and twisted-

Hanabi turned off her byakugan and turned away, suppressing the urge to vomit, but Shikako just smiled without averting her gaze. Did she understand it somehow? That- the way it- She swallowed her bile. Shikako really was a genius, and not just in traditional ninja skills.

"That, looked like..." Hanabi nodded jerkily. "You already managed that much?"

"I have the utmost basics of this form of manipulation down," Shikako corrected softly. "It will take time, of course, to develop this into something we can use to get home safely. But with no other goals to accomplish, I imagine I can at least get a message back to Konoha within a week. It'll have to be more robust to take us, because of our chakra systems, but that is only a matter of time." She smiled kindly at Hanabi. "I have plenty of food and water for the foreseeable future, so I'm afraid this is likely to be an exceedingly boring experience for you."

Hanabi thought back to the sudden horror of the battlefield, the ferric tang of blood in the air, and the scent of burning flesh.

"I think boring is an excellent way to end this misadventure," Hanabi admitted.

* * *

 _Countless voices raised in silent songs. Each a symphony in themselves, at times in resonance, but often in dissonance. The beauty is unaffected by the clashing, for this too is part of greater euphony. The orchestra turns, crashes down upon her like a tide and she cannot breathe for it, cannot think for it, her own song so tiny even though it is a world in of itself, and she cannot hear the voice of her heart any longer, for the orchestra's song flows into her and says-_

 **Upon this Earth there grew a tree;**

 **A tree of LIFE grown tall and grown tall and free;**

* * *

Shikako sat upright, instantly awake. There was... there was something very important and...

It was gone, now. Except... was it really? She opened her senses wide, feeling the world around her in its vibrant glorious life. For a moment, she caught a strain of music at the limits of her chakra-enhanced hearing, but… No, they were alone. There were people in the area, but none were of any concern. Her genjutsu still held, which was good. She had never needed to try to maintain one while asleep before.

She put the vague worries of dreams from her mind for the moment, and nodded at the sleepy Chiyako who was finishing a short, academy student length portion of the watch.

"Go ahead and go back to sleep," Shikako murmured quietly in the little girl's ear. "I'll get back to work, and you can have breakfast for you when you wake up, though it won't be very interesting."

Chiyako pressed herself against Shikako's side and latched on, asleep in moments. Shikako sighed with a smile on her lips, and pulled out a notebook.

* * *

 _Countless stars burning in the emptiness. Each burns, not through fusion of hydrogen or helium or nitrogen or carbon or oxygen or magnesium or silicon, but through the power of emotion, of life. And all the universe burns around her and she's so very tiny, though she herself is a star of vast luminosity and it burns her but she does not combust for it is not heat it burns with but life and it shines into her and she cannot turn away and the meaning that is carved upon her very core is-_

 **Upon its branches in radiant WHITE;**

 **Grew I, and I, as is my right;**

* * *

She stepped back carefully to watch the compact region forming. She was getting that consistently now, so she felt confident that she could move on to the transit.

That would be the tricky part, she expected.

From her dreams, all that remained was a memory of stars. It wasn't anything to worry about. She felt the world around her, the little lights of life flickering and changing how they shone as the day went by.

Shiho, Chiyako and Hanabi were slowly poring over her sealing texts, ostensibly in the hopes of being helpful at some point, but really because they just wanted something to do.

If they asked for something to entertain themselves with, Shikako had a variety of fiction novels and four decks of cards, because she was going to abuse hammerspace to hell and back and nobody was going to stop her! And it was certainly a habit that was paying off now. But they had expressed an interest in sealing instead, so who was Shikako to divert their fascination from a much-needed specialty?

Also, the Kakashi school of life-lessons was very effective.

* * *

 _Countless throbbing hearts, pulsing with the beat, the rhythm. They beat as one, not in tempo, not in strength, not in purpose, but they share an existence. Her heart is no different, and it throbs in her chest with the surety of the beat of the universe itself and the beat says-_

 **Speak with clear voice;**

 **To those with choice;**

* * *

Shikako awoke instantly at the sound of heavy breathing. She couldn't feel or hear an intruder; rather, Hanabi had curled herself up in a corner of the room, shivering from night terrors. Shiho looked towards Shikako as she stood, but she just put a finger to her lips and let the cryptologist continue the watch.

Shikako knelt beside the little Hyuuga, and gently shook her shoulder, drawing the girl's attention to her warm presence. Strength enough to shield the child in her arms; confidence in her safety; a night watch proof against dangers in the dark. She'd never done this before, but it came naturally now from the pulse of her chakra. Positive intent. She was here. Nothing could harm the little girl she was holding without getting through her, and nothing was getting through her.

Hanabi slowly relaxed, looking up at her with pale eyes wet around the edges.

She didn't try to console Hanabi, didn't tell her it was okay. She knew that Hanabi had her pride. She just held her close, and if Shikako's vest grew damp on the outside the kunoichi said not a word about it.

"Once upon a time," Shikako whispered, "there was a lady, of much land and more wealth, who lived in a castle. And in the tallest tower, locked away from even her closest advisors, she kept a mirror which contained a spirit of the air, sealed away. And this spirit could not affect the world outside the glass, but it could listen on the winds and hear their tales, and by speaking certain words before the mirror, the lady could compel it to speak of what it knew. In the hands of a ninja, or a lord wise to their ways, this would be a terrible weapon indeed, but in this time there was little profit to be made for ninja in the lady's lands, and so the ninja clans travelled instead to places of strife far from her home. And so the lady used the mirror frivolously. For you see, she was very vain."

Hanabi snorted a little, as her tears began to dry.

"Yes, indeed," Shikako agreed, continuing to adapt the story on the fly. "But she did not use the mirror to gaze upon her own face. She was a spiteful woman, and though proud of her own appearance she prided herself far more on being more beautiful than all others in the land. As long as she was the fairest of all, she could be as happy as a person of such temperament can ever be. However, one day she spoke to the spirit the words of power, and queried it, as she did every day. And the answer was not to her liking, for while she had aged and leisure and poor temper had begun to take a toll, a young woman in the town had waxed in beauty as the days went by, and now clearly outshone the lady like the sun outshone the moon…"

By the time she got to the part where a group of seven ninja passed by, and the shinobi who led them was so entranced by the maiden's beauty that he chose to subtly sabotaged the evil lady's second attempt to scar the maiden's face, Hanabi had drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

 _Countless threads of thought making countless tapestries, each a tiny piece of a quilt the size of the universe. A rainbow, no a Spectrum of Life, all the colors of emotion wrapped around her and she was just a tiny piece, so small really, but the entire quilt seemed tied to her and the threads curled around her limbs and as it moved it moved her like a puppet and the patterns it drew said-_

 **When evil comes, look deep within;**

 **And find your light, to cleanse their sin;**

* * *

"A-are you alright?" Shiho asked nervously, not even attempting to hide how she was staring at the change that had occurred in Shikako's sleep.

"It… doesn't hurt," Shikako said slowly, thinking back on things she had dismissed earlier. "But my dreams have been... strange, since we arrived in this world," Shikako finally admitted, to herself as much as to the worried children at her sides as she examined herself in a mirror. "I... I don't grasp it when I wake up, but... there's something vast, something... larger than I can easily comprehend. And, when I push my senses to their limits, it is almost as if... as if there is something just out of reach. Out of the corner of my eye, or at the edge of my hearing."

Her eyes had emblems in them, in stark, brilliant, glowing White Light. An inverted triangle, with lines spreading out from its upper side. Something in the back of her mind itched at the sight. It felt like satisfaction. Shikako smiled at her Emblem shining in her eyes, it wouldn't be long before we-

"Fuck," Shikako swore, as the last piece dropped into place, wiping the other being's grin off her face. It wasn't anything to worry about, of course. This was the way things had to be. But Shikako held firm, and as the imposed sentiment faded she thought furiously. And futilely. She shouldn't waste her time trying to stop this from happening, she now knew. The entity was coming through her thoughts and feelings, using them as a guide to pour itself into her body, like an ocean pouring a water glass full to overflowing.

She could… knock herself out? It wouldn't be able to use her body in any meaningful fashion when unconscious, though it would probably complete the possession unless she killed herself. And she couldn't afford to die now. She needed to get herself and the others back to Konoha.

"I have a... susceptibility," Shikako told her companions, "to sentient energy beings. They can impinge upon my awareness in ways I cannot counteract. During one particular mission, I was even, for lack of a better term, possessed by a being comprised of natural energy. The experience was very nearly deleterious for my existence as an independent intelligence."

"You mean," Shiho gulped. "That you might-"

"I was unprepared then. Hopefully, I will fare better this time. And even if my personality is erased, it will be reliant on my mind to a degree, so there is a chance that you can convince the entity to continue to aid you," Shikako said calmly. There was a thrill of panic somewhere in her, but she knew, deep within, that events were already well on their way, and struggling against it would be futile and non-productive. She could not work up any significant fear or anger at the thought- or rather, she felt it, and felt it strongly, but it was fleeting and unimportant compared to preparing for what would come next. For what she would become, next.

"Listen," she spoke to head off her charges' panic, "now is not the time to give up. I won't have a working portal going before the possession completes, especially not with my thoughts and feelings being suspect. But there are things I can do. Shiho, I need you to start taking notes. I will explain as much of the theory of producing the portal as possible. If the worst happens, you will need to be able to continue to develop the seal in my absence."

Shiho tried to shake off her shock. She wasn't very successful, but she numbly took the writing supplies Shikako pressed on her. That's right, she realized, she had all of their supplies. She'd have to take the time to move things out of her Infinite Pocket and into storage scrolls.

Multitasking it was.

"Alright, first you need to understand that gravity is a distortion of space-time, and since we need to distort space-time, that's where I'm starting…

* * *

"Does that make sense?" Shikako bit back a yawn and flushed her system with chakra. It burnt back the exhaustion a little. Trying to teach exhaustively like this with no breaks was, it wasn't easy. She hadn't been doing anything but talking and thinking, but it drained you. Or maybe she was just growing closer to the moment of her sublimation- Fuck, not again. Keep focused.

Shiho wasn't doing any better. "I- No? Not all of it," She ventured a little blearily. "Um, but, I've written it down. I can use it later."

"No, that's not… seals don't work like that." Shikako shook her head. "I, look I've got sealing notes in some of those scrolls, but… I don't think I explain this fully there? We'll, we'll come back to this part, grab a new- Alright. So. Sealing. You have to really understand it. It's… seals are symbolism. They're an interface for thought. For someone's thought. You don't have to understand a seal to use it, but the person who designed it does…"

* * *

"No, a straight line is how light moves. The, um, shortest path." Shikako gestured. "It's not… not necessarily what would be straight from our perspective, a straight line in this context is defined by the route light would take." If you ignore quantum mechanics and look at the big picture. Which this was. Should she- No, it would just confuse her and that wasn't the point anyway.

"So light should be able to pass through a portal easily because it… because the light seems to curve from our perspective?" Shiho ventured.

"So light will tend to get through even if it isn't stable," Shikako clarified. The high from the soldier pills were wearing off and the time of our unification was near- No, not yet, damnit. Just… just keep going. Don't waste time on fear. "You can't rely on a visual inspection. Don't even think about going through until you push something through and pull it back and it doesn't look damaged."

"Right," Shiho clumsily scrawled that down, her stained hands clearly aching in spite of chakra enhancement.

"The hypersurfaces have to be space-like," Shikako reiterated. "It'll look like it works right if they're light-like, but you won't be able to get anything other than light through in that case, not in one piece at any rate. You have to set the boundary conditions right."

Shiho scrubbed at an eye blearily, but with drive born of desperation spoke up. "Right, try explaining that one more time. The, um, hypersurfaces part. Please?"

* * *

 _It pours in like the ocean, like a world is flowing into her soul, like the universe was distilled into a single droplet and that droplet was her and her mouth opened wide, not to accept it for it was already inside her and she welcomed it for how could she not? But to sing the song of Light, of Life and the words in her voice were spoken-_

 **When darkness falls, don't fear the night;**

 **Life's new dawn comes- LET THERE BE LIGHT!**

* * *

"You aren't allowed to die!" Chiyako hiccupped at Shikako's increasingly vacant face. The tokubetsu jounin visibly struggled to focus on her.

"I, no, I won't die," Shikako managed to say. "I won't," she said more certainly. "I'll… I won't abandon my team. Things are coming and… and we have to be ready, so I absolutely… won't die. We will- No, I, yes…"

Shiho pulled Chiyako back a little, easily strong enough to manhandle the girl. Shiho cursed foully inside her head as Shikako clenched her mouth shut to prevent any further babbling. Shikako leaned in, and pressed a kiss to Chiyako's forehead, rested a hand very briefly on Hanabi's head, and moved back several feet with a wince, then managed to nod meaningfully at Shiho.

She had to look after them now. Shikako couldn't take care of anyone anymore, so as- so as a shinobi of Konoha, looking after its children fell to Shiho in- in Shikako's place. Shiho guided Hanabi behind her, and more forcefully did the same with Chiyako.

Shiho pulled out a kunai, and faced a girl that she was absolutely certain could kill her in an instant if it really came to that. If Shikako, if the thing in Shikako, if it wanted them dead then… then Shiho would never have a chance.

The kunai didn't waver. Shiho refused to let it. She had two little girls behind her, and they would only get hurt over her dead body. Shikako smiled at the sight, like she was proud of her. Maybe she was. The cryptologist hoped so.

The light behind Shikako's eyes, which had been slowly increasing in luminosity, suddenly flared up and-

-shone-

-from-

-within, and wreathed Shikako in its raiment.

"S-Shikako?" Shiho asked, tremulously. It was- That quick? In an instant, it had just…

"We are she, in part." The voice, incongruously, was still hers, but the speaker... was not. Still, her smile was kind, for what little that seemed to be worth at the moment. "There is no cause for alarm at this juncture. We live."

* * *

In which: janitorial work is done, authorities are evaded, locked doors fail to stop ninja, and Shikako sets to work on poking a hole in the universe (and then trying to teach others how to do so). A temporary hole. …One hopes. Oh, and Shikako gets a visitor who is very distracting.

In other words, welcome to Earth-?'s Blackest Night/Brightest Day episode! ...Fear is at times an appropriate response. But don't worry! She definitely... well... means well?

Next time I'll be hitting up the DC cast.

The events depicted in this episode took several days, by the way.

Idea for the bolded parts partially comes from Gregg Landsman's Nobody Dies and partially from variations on the White Lantern Oaths.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Just little bits of editing this time, really.

So, quick summary that you aren't going to need, but might want anyway: the Justice League is a fairly new institution in Earth-?. I've not thought up their particular origin story in detail, but current members include Superman (Clark Kent), Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira), Batman (Batman), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Flash (Barry Allen) and Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz). Aquaman (King Orin) is the world's most badass politician, and between his very time-intensive job and his family doesn't have the spare time needed for being part of the League. They are a spiritual successor to the Justice Society, which punched a lot of Nazi supervillains back in the day and featured Wonder Woman, the Flash (Jay Garrick), Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson), the Spectre (Jim Corrigan) and the original Green Lantern (Alan Scott), among others that people who aren't into DC lore have almost certainly never heard of.

(The team's Green Lantern is Kyle Rayner, since Stewart is busy starting a family with Hawkgirl - she isn't a Thanagarian spy/sleeper agent in this timeline, but rather her DCAU fake origin story is real, so their relationship went a lot better and advanced quicker. Jordan had some Parallax related problems that led to Rayner's selection, while Gardner has, through a series of strange circumstances, found himself leading the Red Lantern Corps after Atrocitus fell afoul of Larfleeze.)

Yes, I've thought this world out far more than is actually relevant to the story. I'll probably end up putting some of my design notes after the epilogue, so if you have any questions, leave a review and I'll share later.

* * *

Wonder Woman was not a fan of monitor duty. Despite that, she did a lot of it, because she was good at it and had more time to spend on it than all the others save J'onn, and she had a much better temperament for it than, for example, Flash. Really, it involved a lot of boredom, punctuated by sudden, half-expected moments of adrenalin, after which she got to rush off to help out. J'onn tended to take all of the shifts no one volunteered for, since he actually lived on the Watchtower.

Diana wasn't entirely sure that it was good for the telepath to isolate himself from the people living on Earth like that, but she recognized that J'onn was still scarred from what had happened to the other Martians. Survivors guilt was a terrible thing before you added telepathic linking to the people you lost into the situation.

Monitor duty mostly involved keeping an eye on the Watchtower's sensors while trawling through news outlets to pick out disasters they could provide meaningful aid to. The rest of the job was being there to pick up the phone if another member of the League called for help.

There was the sound of approaching feet, and a hesitant pause, before J'onn knocked on the open doorframe to get her attention. He was still in the process of adjusting to being around non-telepaths, so he made an effort to announce his presence. "Wonder Woman," J'onn intoned, "I sensed a strangeness during my meditations today. I am... unsure of the import or the source, but felt it prudent to inform you."

Diana arched a sculpted brow. "Strangeness as in, unusual thought patterns? Or an unusual being passing by?" Hopefully this wasn't a prelude to some madman's attempt at mass mind control. She was reasonably confident about the protections she had arranged for the Spear of Destiny, but even her gods had their limitations.

"Closer to the second." J'onn somewhat belatedly gestured with his hands. He did not naturally fidget or gesture like humans did, though he sometimes would subtly shapeshift to reflect his emotions. This left him somewhat strange for humans to interact with, because the expected body language cues were simply missing unless he made the effort to consciously produce them. "But... somewhat delocalized. I could not pin down the source's location, though I feel confident in saying that it was located on Earth, rather than approaching from beyond high Earth orbit."

He paused, distracted, and closed his eyes. Diana's attention was caught be a blinking red light on one of the control panels, which almost immediately began to produce an infuriating beeping noise. It had her attention, so it could just be quiet already, right? She followed the prompting to bring up an interior view of the Watchtower's lounge, which was no longer unoccupied. J'onn, opening his eyes to see that he had been preempted in alerting her of their visitors, joined her in a moment of befuddled staring at the sight of... four children?

* * *

Two of the children could be described as teenagers, though young ones, while the other two, nervously standing behind the non-glowing teen, were perhaps eight years of age. Three of the children were wearing some unprofessionally modified combination of robes and bandages, with pouches and scrolls tied to them. The last, who they were carefully eying, wore something that reminded Diana more of a white version of the modern Green Lantern costumes than anything else, though there wasn't a ring or mask to complete the ensemble.

"Give her back!" The oldest one brandished a black dagger towards the child wreathed in garb and glow of white. She was very hesitant about it, though she clearly knew how to use the weapon, Diana noted. But more importantly-

 _"I hear them speaking in the dialect of my home,"_ J'onn's mental voice rang clear to her.

 _"Themysciran Greek for me,"_ Diana noted, trusting he was listening to her thoughts. _"They have the gift of tongues... I see no obvious mystical artifacts, so I would tentatively suspect the child in white is responsible."_

"This one has a noble purpose to serve," the child in white said with a reassuring smile. "We understand that this is inconvenient for you, but this one's spirit comprehended the dire need that drove this course and welcomed me, even if her conscious mind could not grasp my message."

"I don't care about any of that!" The thick glasses on the teen's nose slipped a little as she trembled. "Give Shikako back!"

"Please!" The little girl hiding behind the eldest's right side started... leaking a swarm of bugs, was the best way Diana could think to put it. "I'll... My kikaichu will eat all of you up if you don't go away, so... so leave Shikako-neechan alone!"

The girl in white shook her head, even as the little girl on the left did something strange with her eyes and held her hands up, with the beginnings of a glow around them. "It is futile. I possess far greater energy than your entire clan could devour. Accept that this is how things are, now." She looked towards J'onn and Diana. "Good, you have arrived."

"Pleased to meet you," Diana spoke first, hoping to defuse the situation. "Can I ask what the point of contention is, and the reason for your arrival at this station?"

"Enemy action resulted in these ones becoming stranded in this parallel." The child in white spoke calmly, while her elder gritted her teeth. "This one set upon the task of forming a portal to return home of the type wherein a compact region is formed within an unaffected area of space-time, and the topology of the transit is similar to-"

"Shikako got possessed by this crazy energy being and we can't get rid of it!" The eldest interrupted. The child in white, Shikako, beamed at her.

"That is correct. You are incapable of changing the situation. Recognizing your own limitations in this matter is important." Shikako, or rather whatever was possessing her, turned back towards Diana and J'onn. "We will soon enter into combat against our opposite number, in life's name and for life's sake. This one desires that safety and aid be granted to her protectorate." She looked towards the other children as she said that, so her meaning was fairly clear. "This one has imparted knowledge and resources upon them prior to this one's sublimation, however there was not enough time to finish development of the portal. Time grows short, and we must depart now. Will you aid these children?"

J'onn spoke for both of them:

"Naturally, we will not abandon them in their time of need, but-"

There was a flash of white light, and Shikako was gone, ignoring the teen's protestations. The little girl with the bugs broke out in big wet sobs, while the white-eyed child stared stoically out the window towards the planet below, jaw clenched.

* * *

William Hand was a man of... unusual tastes. Necrophilia was not the full extent of it, though it was the desire to put his fascination to good use that had initially lead him to taxidermy.

He was long past the point of caring about 'good use' now.

Death fascinated him in every aspect. The remnants, corpses and tombstones alike. The anticipation in hospices. The desperation and release of the event itself.

Once, he had been more... modest in his glorification of death. He had been, and in fact still was, aware that others had differing opinions on the matter. Once, he had cared about that. But now, now he dreamed, and sought to make those dreams reality. Now, he had grown uncaring about what others thought. Now he didn't hold back.

His youngest brother's neck caved inwards with a dull crunch beneath William's unforgiving fingers. William relished the moment that the light left his eyes, the heartbeat stilled, and death, glorious death, stilled his brother's thoughts forever. All the lights had gone out. He breathed deep of the scent of the moment before letting the corpse drop to the floor, joining the rest of William's family. Mother and father, and all three of his brothers, all together in one beautiful display of death.

"Just one left," William sighed happily, a genuine smile on his lips as he reached for the specially chosen knife he wore on his belt. It had a weight to it, a heft. It was what he needed to make this moment perfect. "One more, and then all the lights go out..."

He held the blade, positioned it carefully so it would strike true. If he messed up now, why, that would ruin the whole thing, even if the result would be the same. After all, this death was special.

"All the lights go out," he repeated-

-and drove the knife into his chest, stilling his black, black heart. And that blackness he had nurtured, grew and bloomed in a great withering of the world and the Black Light of Death, Nekron, in that moment chose to-

 **"RISE."**

* * *

Barry casually zipped along the burnished metal floors of the Watchtower at a lazy fifty miles an hour, and skidded to a halt as he passed through the door into the lounge. And- small crying child alert.

Quickly accelerating to just below the speed of sound to near-instantaneously reach Diana's side, Barry used the time he could perceive the world in slow motion to take in the ragged-looking threesome piled on the couch. He slapped on his best cheesy grin and leaned an elbow on the Amazon's shoulder as he blurred to a halt. "You called?" He drawled, giving the beautiful woman his seemingly full attention. "Who are the munchkins?"

Barry had passed Batman on the way in, holed up in the security room, which now made sense: he... probably wasn't the best at dealing with distressed children. Or maybe he was good with children, but letting it be known would ruin his image? Barry pondered the thought briefly, before dropping it faster than Diana could blink. Superman strode in through the opposite doorway, controlled power in every motion, while J'onn hovered before the bay window, deep in meditation.

Directing his thoughts back to the kids, Barry was pleased to have caught their attention, but... wow, jumpy. The little crying one stifled her tears and fixed her eyes on him, as did the older girl with the bottlecap glasses, but they didn't relax at all. After a moment, the teen looked away, fingers relaxing slightly from the death-grip she had on a big old dagger. She sagged inwards a little.

The little girl who wasn't crying had something up with her eyes, and didn't seem to react to him at all... blind or some sort of super perception, or both, he guessed.

"These are Hanabi, Shiho, and Chiyako," Diana said softly, looking at each of them in turn. "Girls, the speedster here is Flash, and that is Superman. Batman is off doing his own thing from what I understand, so that just leaves Green Lantern- ah, there we go."

"Sorry to hold everyone up," Kyle scratched the back of his head. "Huh, we don't usually get visitors up here?" He looked at Superman questioningly, but their vaguely acknowledged leader shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm interested to find out myself," the man of steel admitted.

"Shiho," Diana said gently, "can you tell us what happened? The more details we have, the better our odds of being able to help are."

Shiho's head drooped down towards the floor. "I don't know if I should," she whispered, sounding very young. "I, I just..."

Barry could tell that she was pretty near the end of her rope. She was clearly exhausted.

"We need help," Chiyako mumbled, tugging on Shiho's sleeve. "Nee-chan could be anywhere, and she's very strong. With that thing inside her, we, we're too weak to fight her even without it, so now..."

Shiho's eyes drooped, but she forced them open and put a hand lightly on Hanabi's shoulder.

Hanabi nodded slowly, her pale, pupil-less eyes settling on each of them in turn. "They are strong... they don't have chakra, but I can tell they can channel other energies, and a lot of them."

Kyle smiled at her. "You have good eyes-"

Barry watched it happen in slow motion, as Hanabi's stoic façade shattered into an uncontrollable flinch, the girl curling in on herself defensively as if expecting an attack. Shiho and Chiyako's eyes widened, taking in what Kyle was saying and Hanabi's reaction, and they instinctively moved. Shiho practically threw herself to her feet in a defensive stance between Kyle and Hanabi, though her arms shook with fright and her eyes flickered around desperately, looking for an exit. Little Chiyako hurled herself on top of Hanabi the instant Shiho wasn't between them, as if expecting to block an attack with her body, and a swarm of insects flowed out of her clothes, swirling around and obscuring them from Barry's sight.

Kyle was taken aback, and actually retreated a few steps in the face of the near-hysterical children. "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Was I being insensitive? I just..."

Shiho swallowed sharply, eyes darting around, and tried very hard to look nonchalant. "Y-yes. Hanabi was b-born blind. I-it is a very sore spot for us, and there's n-no reason to ever mention her eyes ever again. E-ever. And i-if anyone s-so much as, as even thinks about touching them, I'll, I'll stab them. For, um, for being really insensitive." She nodded several times in a row to punctuate her speech.

Barry stared, in a kind of stunned awe, at the girl who was quite possibly the worst liar he had met in his entire life. (It didn't quite distract him from his dawning sense of horror at what kind of trauma Hanabi had been put through to give that reaction from them.)

Kyle, while no fool, was a great guy through and through, and immediately and profusely apologized while Diana helped smooth the situation over. Chiyako continued to hold tightly to Hanabi, though, even after Shiho sat back down and Chiyako's insects crawled back inside her clothes...

That was a lot of insects, and her clothes weren't exactly baggy, Barry noted as he cheerfully razzed Kyle about scaring children. (Kyle played along.) ...It probably wasn't a good idea to speculate too much on the matter, he decided, and tried to not think about the rather uncomfortable mental images of various ways insects could manage the feat. She didn't seem to be injured, so they... probably weren't burrowing in through the skin or anything like that. He hoped.

"Shikako, or rather the entity possessing her, already told us that you came from a parallel world," Diana prompted gently. "We can try to help you get home later, but to try to help Shikako, we need to know everything you can tell us, both about Shikako and about the possessing entity."

Shiho, after a quiet nod from Hanabi, started to speak.

* * *

Batman had already begun his search for 'Shikako' as soon as he had gained access to the image of the girl on the Watchtower security feeds. He now had software running the image, and he expected that if she showed up somewhere populated she would eventually be captured on image. She was very eye-catching, after all.

Batman now worked on the little things an automated program couldn't do - examining news outlets for less obvious clues to Shikako's presence. Unexplained bursts of white light, explosions (so much chaff to work through here; each was a tragedy, but Batman needed to find the abnormal ones, those he could do something about), shadow manipulation... The possessing being had left for a confrontation, so it would only be a matter of time before some clue appeared. But if the fight occurred in a non-populated area...

Well, Bruce Wayne had put up several satellites over the years, and maybe Batman had the access codes to a few cameras. And getting at the raw footage for Google's Google Earth project was well within Batman's capabilities. It might not be enough, sadly. He was largely relying on the (in his experience, well founded) assumption that someone that glowed that brightly would be extremely visible in combat. She could go to ground, or even underground, and he might never find her.

He stopped moving, stiff as a statue, as an atavistic terror filled him. He lunged to the side, half-expecting an attack, but nothing appeared. The room was the same as it had ever been. Yet... he had sensed something. Had he picked up on something that his conscious mind ignored, or perhaps an empathy or telepath had broadcasted at him? He listened carefully, holding his breath, but could not hear anyone else in his immediate vicinity.

His eyes were drawn to the monitor showing the lounge, and he found verification that he had not suddenly developed paranoia. Everyone was on their feet, cautiously searching for the cause of the moment of unnatural dread. With haste, Batman cycled through the interior cameras of the Watchtower. There was nothing to be found, and at the very least none of the obvious signs of tampering were present. He proceeded to check more carefully.

"I feel an oppressive, unnatural pall hanging over us."

Batman listened carefully to the Martian Manhunter's speech as he continued his work.

"But it lays even heavier upon the world below. I sense a great disturbance in the American Mid-West."

* * *

Nekron stood in the center of a four-way intersection, head thrown back to see the sky. Slowly, the stars above became visible, one by one, as the balmy evening became proper night. It was a beautiful sight of cold, emotionless splendor, which tonight, and every night to come until the sun expanded and devoured the Earth, would be clearly visible. All throughout the downtown Milwaukee area, car engines failed to start, lights flickered and died, and plants and small animals wilted and stilled. This was merely the beginning, these minor manifestations of death. Nekron's concentrated presence already lapped away at the glow of human lives within the region, and the entire world trembled in unknowing terror.

But to really get the ball rolling... That was easy enough, now. William had already done the hard work. Nekron flexed the hands that had once belonged to William, reveling in the physical might of the corpse he now possessed.

An officer of the law, whose voice Nekron had easily been tuning out for the past minutes, looked down each street carefully before walking out briskly towards the form of William Hand. For a moment, Nekron considered merely letting the fool attempt to accost him. Such a weak light as his would be snuffed out in an instant by contact with the black light that infused and garbed this body. But, perhaps it was a leftover from William's sense of artistry, but Nekron on a whim grasped the dagger on his belt and swung, cleaving the officer's head from his shoulders with the effortless strength his dead form possessed.

As the body and head separately struck the ground, Nekron's presence instantly became palpable. The city's inhabitants weakened, stumbled at the pressure that not only weighed upon their bodies, but upon their very souls. Nekron's black light visibly swirled around him, and the sky seemed to dim as the wind, carrying traces of the blackness, began to howl. Nekron could feel his influence expanding outwards with each moment, and as the downtown area started to choke and die due to his existence, living beings a hundred or more miles away found that it was becoming difficult to breathe. He smiled, all teeth, as the officer's radio crackled, asking what had happened and receiving no reply.

"All the lights go out," Nekron promised. This world was only the beginning. "Starting with you, nameless thing."

The life elemental's borrowed form stepped towards William's, the white light she emitted stilling the black winds Nekron had summoned. "We need no name. We do not act for our own interests, but for the interests of all the lives that give us meaning. We will only say this once: your presence upon this plane is unnatural and deleterious to life. Leave."

"Unnatural," Nekron said with amusement. "Death is a fundamental part of the world. Life ends in its presence. That is the natural order right there." He idly pointed his knife at her. "You are a fool to forget it. Coming here to confront me is merely saving me time. I must thank you for making this so easy for me." He stabbed the blade forward, and the Black Light rushed out, a spear of death aimed for her heart.

The Life Entity reached out, grasped the blade and halted it with far greater strength than a girl her host's size could project, and White Light flared back along Nekron's attack, a flowering vine of white that shattered the blackness it dug into and sought out Nekron's heart.

Nekron, taken aback, vanished the construct into the ether and leaped away, taking note of the Life Entity's host for the first time. A small child in comparison to the full-grown man that William was, Nekron should have felt confident, especially with the enhanced strength and durability an undead host gave him. Yet... something about how the Life Entity had responded defied his expectations. It seemed very confident, for a being in conflict with its natural predator. Nekron drew on more of the Black Light, matching the level that the Life Entity had already-

Realizing that the Life Entity had used his hesitation to prepare its next strike, Nekron leapt off the ground with a thought of wings, leaving carrion feathers of blackness in his wake. It was not a moment too soon, for the Life Entity's White Light erupted upwards and outwards, and also deep down into the earth, forming a vast tree of white that matched the height of the local skyscrapers, its branches and roots smashing apart roads and windows as the great construct swung its branches down at him while its roots spiked up with entrapment in mind.

An impressive opening move, but Nekron sped forward at the speed of thought, and swung an equally vast scythe of darkness through a convenience store on the way to a destined meeting with the tree's trunk. He bit deep, though he couldn't force his way through entirely in one swipe. Rather than draw back for another swing, he merely vanished the construct and drove a chainsaw the size of a bus into the gap, aiming for the pulsing heart of the White Light that was-

No longer there?

The roots of the tree caught him by a leg and slammed him into the ground. He looked around wildly as he blasted it back with his aura, seeking where the Life Entity had secreted itself, but the tree blocked too much from his sight. Taking a page from his enemy's book, he flared his power and thick strangler vines took form, grappling with and choking the White Light construct. As its roots dug in, he eagerly called upon the black light's power and drank deep of the White Light's potency. In fact, it strangely seemed as though he was too effective, and he forced himself to cut off the energy drain as the White Light almost filled William's form completely before Nekron buckled down and subsumed it to form more of the Black Light. The experience was more exhausting than refreshing. Frustrated, he expanded his awareness, and grew eyes upon his vines to aid his search. There, on the opposite side of the trunk in the highest branches-

The Life Entity smiled kindly, as if she were doing him a favor, and pushed the tree with a hand. Obligingly, her construct snapped at the base and began to fall, bringing it all crashing down upon Nekron's head. Nekron turned to look for escape, but the roots weaved thickly together to entrap him in that direction, and with a snarl he formed his Light into a spiraling drill, and dove directly into the oncoming trunk. It was exhausting, pushing through the concentrated life like this, but he burst free on the other side with a grunt of effort. As the imitation of a great and mighty tree crushed a city block behind him and knock-on effects spread the ruin even further as a sky-scraper it crashed into screeched and wobbled, soon to fall, Nekron flashed behind his foe. The Life Entity, caught off-guard, barely managed to bring a skinny arm up to futilely attempt to defend against his undead form's powerful strike-

Except, the child's body had unnatural strength and speed of its own, and Nekron found himself slamming into the ground. That... that was no ordinary girl! The Life Entity had chosen a host with powers of its own! He sneered up at the child in white. No matter, he still had an insurmountable advantage in the conceptual strength of his concept above hers. Life can fight death, but never defeat it. Now that he was aware of what he was facing, he could overcome it. He stood, filled with the certainty of the grave, and leapt aside from a blast of White launched by his foe. However, as he did so he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye- green light, high in the sky.

And not just any green light. That was a wielder of the Green Light of Willpower! The Life Entity, it had contacted this world's heroes! Nekron judged his strength, and found to his disconcertment that he was depleted enough that if those fools in the Justice League arrived to lend his foe aid- And yes, a blur of red moved down the city's streets towards him. They were coming in force. No! He would not be stopped! He would retreat, rest, and strike at his advantage!

With a final hateful glare at the Life Entity, Nekron vanished into the night mere moments before the Flash arrived.

* * *

In which: DC characters the average reader is familiar with finally appear, Chiyako threatens to eat someone, William Hand succeeds at all of his life goals, Shikako's companions are pretty close to having nervous breakdowns, the Life Entity doesn't understand the concept of collateral damage, the Justice League really is trying to help (but they are stuck playing catch-up for now), and Nekron is absolutely convinced of his ultimate victory (If It Weren't For Those Meddling Kids).


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note:

Added a scene or two. Story needed a little more Batman, so I added a scene that happened off-screen in the previous version, and I'm trying to feature the mini-ninjas more since they didn't get a lot of character-focus in the latter half of the story the first time around.

* * *

Kyle Rayner wasn't having a particularly good day. He wasn't complaining about it really - he'd gotten used to the fact that having good days as in law enforcement required serious effort. When you go out looking for wrongs to right, you tend to find them, and while he truly believed his work was worthwhile...

Well, if you want to improve the universe, you get exposed to a lot of its nastiness.

He wasn't inclined to think well of someone that bodyjacked a thirteen-year-old, but his artistic sensibilities definitely approved of what of the battle he could see from ten thousand feet up. The sight of a veritable world tree in pitched combat against strangling vines, looming over a darkened city beneath the night sky... Well, he was feeling inspiration for his next drawing, for sure. But as a superhero, it concerned him. This was a display of power on both sides that posed a serious threat to not only the general populace, but also to heroes in the same weight bracket as himself.

That wasn't arrogance. It would have seemed that way once to him, even as little as a year ago, but Kyle had grown into being a Green Lantern now. He wielded the most powerful ranged weapon in the universe, limited only by his imagination and willpower. And he was a damn good artist.

But the point was, whatever their powers were, it seemed similar enough to the scale and strength of capability a power ring granted, though he didn't know how flexible it was. This could turn out really badly.

As the tree fell, crashing down on the buildings below, Kyle focused his thoughts. The streets were unnaturally clear of traffic and pedestrians, so his first goal was to stop the sky-scraper that was currently failing to prop up the sundered tree's branches. Thinking of cathedral walls, vast green buttresses sunk into the building and the street, while an oversized emerald car jack was quickly shoved beneath the tree, and two big hands grasped the crank and turned it, quickly removing the weight the buildings beneath had been suffering.

 _"Damn, the guy she was fighting vanished,"_ Flash's voice came over the communicator. _"I got a pretty good look at him, though. He's rocking a black bodysuit and cape with this... silvery-white upside down triangle insignia with straight lines coming out the top. It's not cloth, it's like, made out of light or something, like the stuff Shikako's wearing except black, if that makes any sense. Has a big old knife. Anyone see him?"_

 _"We'll search the area,"_ Superman said. _"Flash, try to talk to her, find out what's happening."_ Keep her in one place, in other words. Hopefully they could sort out the possession issue peacefully, but if not, well, kids before bodysnatchers. Fighting the thing in Shikako's body wouldn't be fun, but they'd do it if they needed to. _"Green Lantern, keep an eye out, but if you could deal with as much of the collateral damage as possible..."_

"I'm on it," Kyle promised, forming a hydrophone construct with a headset. It was actually a sonic sensor, calibrated to look for quiet but regular sounds like heartbeats and breathing. Usually it would be futile trying to use this in a big city like Milwaukee, but everything was unnaturally quiet. No power, no cars, no pedestrians... though he did pick up on unconscious people in nearby buildings as he swept up and down the street. Nobody looked like they were in danger, or even hurt worse than being scraped and bruised a bit, and he was hesitant to try to evacuate them without a clear and present danger. He could send the whole lot of them out of the area on flying construct beds, though he'd have to smash a few walls. If he were to avoid property damage, which was always good when it wasn't necessary, it would take a lot longer and he wouldn't be able to stand on overwatch for the League which, as the only one with a truly viable ranged power, was an important job.

His attention was drawn to the tree of white light, which slowly began to dissipate into liminal sparks. The vines were persisting, until a tracery of white flowers began to spread upwards from Shikako's glowing figure at their base, and the black light began to flake away under the glow. Superman and Wonder Woman flew about the side streets, keeping an eye out for the black light guy's return, while J'onn floated on the other end of the street. He had no idea where Batman was. Kyle felt J'onn's gentle prodding as his mind, and acquiesced to forming the mental link.

 _"We can all hear you now, Flash,"_ J'onn's thought-voice informed the speedster. _"Please inform us of what you learn."_

 _"So, as I understand it, Shikako's possessed by a life elemental, with no given name allegedly. The other guy is possessed by a death elemental called Nekron. She- It- I'm just going to use female pronouns. 'She' realized that Nekron was preparing to annihilate all life, so she sent out a call for a conduit she could use to counter him. Shikako was the one that ended up picking up the phone, and the life elemental isn't keen on just letting her hang up again until Nekron's gone back to the elemental plane of death where he's supposed to be. This is going over my head a little, does anyone know a trustworthy magic type we can get to look into this? I'm tempted to trust her on this, but I don't know nearly enough about this to judge whether or not she's actually a particularly shiny demon or something."_

 _"I am no practitioner, but I believe that her claims meet the facts, and the sense I have of her power lacks the foulness I am accustomed to in the magic of those who dabble with the infernal,"_ Wonder Woman spoke up. _"Unfortunately, my old ally Doctor Fate has succumbed to old age and passed on from this world, after hiding away his helmet and the order elemental it contains until a worthy successor discovers it. I must warn you all, elementals do not see the world as we do. I expect that attempting to compel the life elemental to leave for the sake of morality will be a lost cause."_

Batman offered advice next. _"I have an... associate that has been of help with the mystical in the past. Zatara, a stage magician with a degree of real power. I believe I can arrange for a consultation."_

 _"What does she think Nekron is up to?"_ Superman asked. _"And what is she planning to do next?"_

 _"He's left to allow his body to recover. Even an undead can only channel so much of the Black Light of Death before their physical form starts to degrade. Nekron's plan is to wipe out all life, so she's... I get the impression that she's acting as bait? If he actually managed to kill her, um, yikes. She says that sentient life would have extreme difficulty propagating until a new life elemental manages to form as an embodiment of the White Light of Life. Wounds wouldn't heal without magical intervention, it would be almost impossible to have children naturally, drastically shortened lifespans... She knows he'll come after her, but she thinks she can win and force him to abandon his link to this plane, which would be... his host body, right."_

 _"Invite her back to the Watchtower,"_ Superman suggested.

 _"...Yeah, she isn't biting. She might not think there's anything wrong with joyriding somebody's body, but she knows we think differently. She says she 'does not plan to allow us an opportunity to come up with and execute a method of ousting her until the crisis has passed'."_ Flash sounded rather chagrined. _"...Okay, she's agreed to not plan on having the next fight in the center of a major city, so she's going to head out into the countryside. I'm planning on following her, unless anyone has any objections?"_

 _"I'll come with you,"_ Superman decided. _"I'm not going to be much help with anything magical, so I might as well play bodyguard for a while. Batman, Wonder Woman, could you start looking into ways to deal with possession and look after our guests on the Watchtower? And Green Lantern, J'onn, can you continue searching the area and cleaning up here? How are the civilians doing?"_

Kyle frowned. _"All unconscious, all mostly unharmed except for one police officer who has a nasty looking scar all the way around his neck. No dead bodies yet, somehow... Oh, right, life elemental! No wonder."_

 _"What do you mean?"_ Wonder Woman asked.

 _"Well, Nekron gave up. The life elemental won here. So of course nobody died, right?"_ Kyle postulated. _"This whole area is practically swamped with the white light she's giving off, and she claims it's basically life magic, so... QED."_

 _"...She's smiling at you, GL,"_ Flash said, confused. _"Is she telepathic? ...Either no, or she's ignoring me. I think she's ready to go, Superman."_

 _"Alright, call us if you figure something out,"_ Superman sent, mostly towards Batman and Wonder Woman. _"Tell the kids that she's unharmed, and we're keeping an eye on her until we figure out what to do."_

* * *

Chiyako and Hanabi were curled up against each other in a corner of the lounge, having made a little resting place out of the cushions that had previously been on the sofa. Chiyako's insects were spread out around the room here and there, and one buzzed and moved away as Diana entered. One of Chiyako's eyes struggled open, but upon seeing only Diana there she turned onto her side and went back to sleep.

Shiho was, technically, awake. She had appropriated a table to unroll a scroll on, and was blearily looking through a sheaf of handwritten notes while consulting an open book. It didn't look like she was making much progress. Diana pulled up a chair and sat down across from her.

"We found her fighting a death elemental," Diana told her quietly at her inquisitive look. "It fled, and she's unharmed, but she is still possessed. Superman and Flash are keeping her company while Batman and I try to find a way to remove the possessing entity."

Shiho looked down at the Earth, and twisted her hands together. "It... could be worse. Thank you."

"You should rest," Diana said. "When was the last time you slept?" The girl was beyond exhausted at this point.

"I..." Shiho clearly had to think about it. "A couple of days ago by now, I guess. After Shikako realized what was happening to her, she had me take dictated notes while she worked so... so that I could maybe get us home if she... if she got her personality permanently erased." Shiho swayed slightly, and blinked repeatedly, trying to focus.

"That's good," Diana started to say, but Shiho slammed the book shut and shook it at her.

"No it isn't!" Shiho hissed. "Do you have any- no, of course you don't." She looked dejected.

"You could try to explain," Diana offered, to which Shiho hunched her shoulders and nodded.

"Shikako and I, we're part of the military village of Konoha, which has a defense contract with the Land of Fire. We're ninja..." Shiho blinked at the odd look on Diana's face. "Um, superpowered military, police, and mercenaries. We guard the borders, clear out bandits, gather intelligence, and we do commissioned work for outside parties if it doesn't conflict with our nation's goals. Well, I'm actually a codebreaker, so I don't really have anything to do with that. Which is kind of the point. I'm... well, I went into intelligence straight out of the academy. Until this happened, I never fought in a real life or death battle, never left the village on a mission..." She swallowed back tears. "I always complained about having to do my training hours for operational readiness, you know? I never thought that I would have to fight, so I did the bare minimum. I never tried to become stronger, so I'm... I'm weak. If it weren't for Shikako helping me out, and setting me up with her kunoichi training group... I'd be even weaker. I wouldn't be alive right now." Shiho focused on Diana's face.

"Shikako is different," Shiho explained. "She's a jounin track ninja, one of the up and coming elites. It hasn't even been a full year since she graduated, and she's already been promoted twice. When she went to the international chunin exams in the Village Hidden in the Grass, she fought Gaara of the Desert to a standstill! He's the head of his village now! The Raikage thought she was a plant!"

Diana lacked the background to judge what that actually meant, but she nodded along. The general idea was clear enough.

"She's a real genius," Shiho continued. "I mean, everyone knew she was smart. She totally redid our storage scroll system," she gestured to the open scroll in front of her, "in a week, after an idiot in logistics insulted her brother and said it was impossible. And she picked up all of the code work that I helped teach her way faster than most people. But I didn't really understand how smart she was until now. She just... We got dropped into another universe, and she's just like 'Oh, I'm sorry, it might take me an entire _week_ to invent a seal to open a portal home, I apologize for the inconvenience.' And, I... I've never made a seal in my entire life. All I have is a bunch of entry level texts that Shikako wrote _in her spare time_ because she was frustrated that they didn't already exist, and a bunch of lectures about how sealing is an interface for thought to interact with the world so that I'm not, you know, completely screwed, and as much as she could teach me about the fabric of space-time and how gravity isn't really a force, but actually a distortion effect that mass has on the universe and-" Shiho paused her rant to breathe in gasps of air. At some point, she'd kicked her chair back and stood. "And I... I don't get it. I'm not smart enough, not educated enough, not, not whatever lets her understand this stuff! I'm a cryptographer! I don't just naturally understand tensors and I don't get how I'm supposed to make sure all of the hyper-surfaces are space-like, I barely understand what a 'hyper-surface' is and, and I'm not her! I can't do this!" Shiho shouted, exhaustion making her tremble. "I'm too weak to save her, and I'm too stupid to get us home, and-"

"Shiho?" Hanabi spoke up from behind her, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Shiho's back went ramrod straight.

"S-sorry for waking you up," Shiho said nervously, not looking at her. "Get some rest, okay-"

She was cut off by Chiyako wrapping her arms around her waist. Hanabi hesitated a moment before following suit. Shiho tried to stifle her tears as she embraced them back, to little avail.

Diana gave them a few moments before speaking up.

"You don't have to do everything yourself. There are people like us with the strength to help you, and there are people on Earth who spend their whole lives studying and teaching the things you need to know. You can't be expected to be a specialist in everything. Events have put you in a situation you weren't prepared for, but you've survived, yes?"

"Y-yeah."

"As long as there's life, there's hope," Diana assured her. "We can help you learn the things you need to know, if it comes down to it. But we aren't giving up on Shikako so easily. For now, these two are relying on you, so focus on that. You are tired and stressed. Get some rest, and in the morning I'll get you some texts on general relativity for you to look through, alright?"

Shiho looked down at the two girls, smiled tearfully. "Thanks... all of you."

* * *

Batman walked briskly up to the door of the mansion, keeping his mind focused on his intentions, politely knocked on the door, and stepped two paces back. He remained there, fully visible.

Normally, he preferred to meet acquaintances on his own terms, in fashions that would bolster his reputation. Reputation went a long way in this business, he found. Reliable, strong, brilliant, and almost supernaturally capable; that was the sort of reputation that did wonders among allies. And the effect on his enemies spoke for itself.

But there was a time and a place for that. And the time for showmanship was 'not during world-ending crises' and the place was 'not a magician's home'.

Batman had a lot of strengths. Being immune to magic was not one of them.

Giovanni Zatara answered the door in full costume, impeccable waistcoat and top hat and all. He also murmured a spell under his breath before opening the door. This was because Zatara was not an idiot. Any practitioner on the side of the metaphorical angels either took precautions or died young, or worse. And the literal angels, as Batman understood it, were rather hit and miss.

"So what brings you to Shadowcrest this time of night?" Zatara stroked his magically coifed mustache. He quite pointedly did not invite Batman in.

"Two cases of elemental possession, purportedly," Batman answered, lowering his voice a little from its natural timbre. "A life elemental and a death elemental. They smashed three square blocks of downtown Milwaukee to pieces as they fought each other. The Justice League needs mystical advice on how to drive out the possessing entities."

Zatara nodded, and stepped back from the doorway. Batman followed him down the halls and, at a warning gesture from the man, stopped outside the library while Zatara went inside, leaving the door open behind him.

"Please tell me that 'life' is not a thinly veiled reference to fertility or procreation," the magician pleaded as he perused the shelves. "That never ends well. Ever."

"Not… specifically fertility," Batman said slowly, rather unsettled by the potential implications. "The host of the life elemental is a thirteen year old girl, so…" He trailed off.

"…Probably not then," Zatara decided with real relief. "It would be quite obvious by now, I can assure you." He shuddered as he set a small stack of books on a table, and then turned his gaze on the vigilante. "Now, tell me everything you know. Start with their names, if you can."

* * *

Chiyako had been scared of the strange place the thing possessing nee-chan had brought them at first, but the people seemed nice enough and nothing bad had happened yet. If it was just until Shikako-neechan got rid of the mean white thingy, this wasn't a bad place to wait for her. And Hanabi seemed to think the people in the colorful uniforms were really helping, so it shouldn't be too long. But she didn't really have anything to do but replenish her hive and it was kind of boring.

At least Wonder Woman didn't mind her asking questions.

"That's really the world we were on?" Chiyako asked Wonder Woman as she looked out the window. "Are we on the moon?"

"We're a good ways closer to Earth than that," the statuesque warrior told her. "This is an orbiting satellite."

Chiyako frowned at the strange word, somehow getting the impression that it was artificial and expensive. Really expensive. But if they weren't on the moon, they probably wouldn't disturb the Ten-Tailed Beast, so that was good. Wait, if they were in a different world now…

"Is your moon a prison, like ours?"

"A prison? No, there are no habitable areas on our moon." Wonder Woman seemed somewhat bemused at the concept. "Is it not prohibitively expensive to transport prisoners to yours?"

Chiyako giggled at the thought. "It's not a prison for people. It's a prison for a big scary monster! The Sage of Six Paths made it when he struck down the Ten-Tailed Beast. He scooped up a big ball of rocks and stuff and wrapped the Ten Tails with it and tossed it so high in the sky it never came back down!"

Wonder Woman smiled down at her, clearly a little disbelieving. "Is that so?"

Chiyako pouted. "It is! The Sage of Six Paths was the best ninja ever."

"Well, he did invent ninjutsu," Hanabi admitted. Chiyako perked up. Hanabi had been really quiet all day, just moping and spying on everything with her byakugan. "But that's ridiculous. Do you have any idea how far away the moon is? And it's huge. Nobody has that much chakra. The story my family tells is that the Sage became disgusted by the violent use of chakra and went to live on the moon by going through a portal. In time, all evils visited upon those of his descendants who remained on our world will be returned ten-fold by those who survive on the moon." She gave a little snort. "And of course the Hyuuga are the Sage's direct descendants and so on and so forth. The Sage lived a thousand years ago. Nobody knows the true story anymore."

"So this is a historical figure?" Wonder Woman asked, interested. "My people have been somewhat perplexed by how history becomes mythology so easily. I suppose that more than twenty-five centuries is a long time for those without immortality, but our own records have been much more consistent than those of others."

"Everyone agrees someone like him had to exist," Shiho spoke up over a big old textbook. "But I think he's more of an idea than a person at this point. We know someone created ninjutsu and spread it, and then everything basically devolved into warfare until the modern village system was created with the founding of Konoha."

Chiyako tuned out the boring history lecture she already knew, and looked Wonder Woman over speculatively. Eventually, she couldn't hold the question back.

"Are you really old and wrinkly like Tsunade-sama?"

Shiho gaped at her, and Hanabi almost reflexively shushed her.

"We don't talk about that!" Shiho scolded Chiyako. "If Tsunade-sama wants to pretend she isn't actually like seventy or something, that's her prerogative."

"Don't be rude," Hanabi agreed. "Tsunade-sama is most definitely a youthful woman who isn't wearing a genjutsu all of the Hyuuga can see through." Chiyako thought she heard Hanabi mumble something about Tsunade aging pretty well, really. And… at least she didn't have a magic mirror? Maybe Chiyako had misheard.

"Sorry," Chiyako muttered, and bowed apologetically to Wonder Woman. "And, sorry! I'm sure that you're definitely under thirty too!"

"Well, I'm actually a little over one hundred," Wonder Woman admitted, thoroughly amused.

* * *

The elderly man cursed to himself as his back gave him grief about reaching across the driver's seat of his car to grasp the bouquet of flowers he had left in the passenger's seat. He winced as his spine popped a little as he stood up straight, tucking the bouquet of lilies under his right arm. It was a fairly large bouquet.

Alan had a lot of flowers to place, these days.

It had been a rainy night, and heavy wet drops occasionally plopped down from the overhanging yews. He momentarily considered grabbing the extendible umbrella from his car door, but decided that it wasn't worth it. It wasn't as if he'd melt if he got dripped on. Closing and locking his car door, he walked through the cemetery gates towards his first destination.

As always, he paid his respects to his wife first. As he brushed the tombstone free of leaves and previous flowers, he thought back to the happy times of their youth together. Their marriage had been tragically cut short by illness, of both the body and of the mind, and he had spent long years grieving at losing what the two of them had once had. But today he thought back to the joy of their honeymoon, to the first fumbling steps of courting, and to the brush of her soft lips against his. Even with the little time their marriage lasted, he would do it all again. He set the lilies upon her resting place, and walked away from Rose's grave feeling lighter than before.

There was another place he had to visit here, though it was set far at the back of the cemetery. A large black metal door obscured a walled-off portion of the graveyard. It wasn't locked, it didn't even have a lock in the first place, but what it contained was not widely spread. Terry had purchased it outright, many years ago, and appropriately the only indication of this location's meaning was the words carved into the door. 'Fair Play' might seem a strange choice to some, but Terry had lived and died by the words. Sadly, Terry's body hadn't been able to be interred here. All that remained of him, physically, was a memorial, but Alan was proud to say that his legacy lived on.

The door was ajar today, which made him frown a little. The graves didn't get many visitors. Hopefully he wouldn't have to track down a dumb punk who had too little respect for the past and had decided to redecorate. Once had been more than enough. His mouth twitched up a little at the sides. The brat could probably still hear his lecture, twelve years later. He'd been mighty riled.

Alan reached out, and the door silently swung out with a gentle tug. What he saw there, however, stopped him in his tracks. He couldn't breathe for the shock as he groped in his pocket for an item he had stopped carrying years ago.

Glowing with black light, surrounded by moving corpses of five of Alan's dearest friends, a man reached out towards the last occupied grave.

"Jay Garrick of Earth," the man sneered. **"RISE!"**

As Jay's casket burst open, Alan turned and fled, and in what seemed like moments exited the cemetery as fast as his legs could carry him. His hips would make him pay for this later, but he didn't care. His body's protests meant nothing. The flowers he had been carrying long forgotten, he slammed into his car as fast as possible, not even bothering to put his seatbelt on. He pushed the speed limit as streets blurred past, and only paused long enough to put the car in park before dashing into his house, slowed only by a momentary fumble with his keys.

It's where he left it, of course. He hadn't seriously thought of putting it on in years, but he could feel it in his bones, like a lodestone to his soul, and it maintained pride of place in his study.

Grasping the ring once more, Alan Scott looks into his lantern, and basks in its glow once more. It's been over sixty years since he first made his oath, but the words come back like it was yesterday.

* * *

In which: We get some exposition and the Justice League starts taking action, Shiho starts to get a handle on things, Batman's off to see the wizard, Chiyako has complete faith in Shikako (and an eight-year-old's attention span), and Nekron is an unmitigated asshole (though not a stupid one) as he makes his next move.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note:

Did you know that there really was a special burial ground for Golden Age heroes? It's called Valhalla Cemetery. Wesley Dodds was buried there. I'll just pretend that I knew that before I wrote the previous chapter rather than getting lucky.

Now, anyone familiar with the Justice Society should have an idea of who the undead Nekron raised are once they see them. For those of you who have little to no idea what the Justice Society is (if you don't know who Wesley Dodds is, this probably includes you), I've included a quick summary of the undead Justice Society members at the end of the chapter so you don't have to go wiki crawling. I'll include my list of what happened to the Justice Society members who don't appear in the design notes after the epilogue.

* * *

It was a heavily clouded day in the Kettle Moraine State Forest's northern unit, about forty-five minutes north of Milwaukee by car, and significantly less with the resources the Justice League had at their disposal. Planning on holding a battle in the hilly, glaciated region wasn't doing the League any favors with the park rangers, but they had agreed that it was a lot better than wrecking another couple of highly populated city blocks. They'd chained off the entrance, and worked through the night evacuating campers. Clark would have to see about making sure they got a commendation or a donation or something when this was all over. Shikako's body, still glowing with the Life Entity inside it, idly kicked her feet back and forth as she sat on a bench, looking out over a section of pine forest approaching a lake. It was disconcerting to see that she still had many of the mannerisms of a girl her age. He'd expected her to be more akin to J'onn in that regard, if she had even bothered at all. It gave him hope that Shikako wasn't completely lost in there.

Clark had eventually managed to get the Life Entity talking with Flash's help. It hadn't been interested in having a conversation, but evidently even an elemental can get bored after several hours of waiting. By this point, Flash had run off to get food for them twice, and was currently nursing his fourth latte.

"Our mandate is not promote good or prevent suffering," the Life Entity explained. "Nor is it even to prevent death. Our role is to facilitate thought, emotion, the propagation of sentience... We are life in the context of living, not in the context of being alive, or 'not being dead' if that makes more sense to you."

"While Nekron is..." Clark prompted.

"Nekron's _intended_ role is an embodiment of the Black Light that pours into the universe as the Spectrum of Life leaves it upon the death of a sentient being. Death does not end the impact of a sentient's thoughts and feelings upon the universe. I do not mean that metaphorically, as in their legacy living on, but literally. When the Glow of life passes to the appropriate planes of existence, the Black Light emerges from the resultant planar fracture. Nekron should not be opposed to life, but a part of life that remains when all else leaves this realm."

"Like, a memorial?" Barry offered.

"Or a grave keeper or a curator," the Life Entity agreed. "Every life that is born and dies enhances Nekron's purpose, power, and glory, or at least that is how a reasonable mind would see the situation. However, Nekron has his own ideas of what his role in the universe should be, and refuses to listen to reason. If ever he did somehow accomplish his desire to end all life, he would be left bereft of meaning."

"So," Clark frowned, "if Nekron's power is fueled by every death that has occurred since sentience arose in the universe, and you draw power from all sentient beings that are currently alive, wouldn't that make him stronger?"

The Life Entity giggled. It was a strangely girlish sound from a being that probably didn't have a gender at all, and Clark found himself forcibly reminded that the elemental was possessing a little girl that was more than two heads shorter than him. She fingered Shikako's braided hair and smiled at him. "Nekron certainly thinks so. But, allow us to give you a riddle. If you got into a fight with... let's say the 1.4 billion sentient beings that didn't escape Krypton's destruction. Who would win?"

Clark scrutinized her. It was clearly a trick question, but he wasn't entirely sure what the trick was. "I'm assuming from context that you think that I would."

The Life Entity hopped up from the bench she had been sitting on, and hovered in front of him in a flare of white. "That's right, but if you don't see why then you haven't really solved it."

"Because... I'm alive, and they aren't," Clark concluded. None of the other obvious possibilities fit with the discussion. Also, he didn't really think he could take on entire planet even if he was the only one with powers. He was strong, but he probably wasn't _that_ strong, and didn't plan on trying to find out one way or another.

"The dead are limited in ways the living are not." She turned to the east. "It will not be long, now."

Clark reached for his communicator. "J'onn, Green Lantern, she thinks Nekron will be heading this way soon. If you could keep an eye out and start moving in our direction, I'd appreciate it."

"Your support is welcome, but should not be necessary," the Life Entity told him as a chorus of acknowledgment came over the radio. "Nekron cannot kill me."

"Considering what would happen if he did manage it, I'd rather not risk it," Flash spoke up with a sentiment Clark thoroughly agreed with. "Also, 'cannot' doesn't usually mean much in this business."

"If nothing else, we promised Shikako's friends that we'd help her. Even if you are right, and Nekron's attempts to kill you are doomed to failure, Shikako is made of flesh and bone just like anyone else." Well, anyone else with physical enhancement powers, Clark had to admit, but saying that wouldn't help the point he was trying to make.

"I rather cherish the thought of reaping both you and your host at once," Nekron practically purred as he appeared out of the sky above them. Clark frowned, not sure how he had gotten there, and resolved to learn the specifics of how the instantaneous movement both Nekron and the Life Entity sometimes demonstrated worked. There had to be some sort of limitation to it, since they didn't use it constantly, but he wasn't sure what it was. Also, he hadn't expected 'soon' to be 'almost immediately'.

"He's here," Clark heard Flash mutter into his communicator.

This being his first time seeing Nekron, or rather the undead form Nekron was wearing, he took a close look. Flash's earlier description of the man was rather accurate, though Clark noted that the man was quite... corpse-like at this point. He was very clearly an undead, with an unnatural, bloodless pallor, eyes seeping blackness, and a certain tightness to his skin, like it was stretched thin over muscle and bone. Superman could hear no heartbeat, and Nekron didn't bother breathing except to get air to speak with.

"I see you continue to rely on the aid of the heroes of this world," Nekron sneered. "An admirable attempt to make up for your weakness against the concept I represent, but ultimately futile."

The Life Entity gave Nekron an equally scornful look. "Give up your futile endeavor, Nekron. Your childish actions are beneath beings such as ourselves. Return to your home plane."

"That's an interesting insult from the one possessing a child," Nekron hissed. "But no matter. The heroes you rely on cannot save you this time! Now!"

Immediately, the forest to the side was lit by a handful of highly suspicious glows. Clark flew into the air and twisted to meet the new threat, while the area that had previously contained Flash became a torn apart blur of black and red. Another speedster? He couldn't say for sure. As Nekron and the Life Entity traded blasts of light, Clark dodged around a blast of red energy. There was no immediate follow-up from the black-suited form that had launched it, so Clark prioritized the stooped man whose hands were calling forth a ball of energy that made his teeth itch. Magic. Clark hated fighting magicians.

The ball of coruscating energy scattered apart into a dozen eldritch blasts, and Clark would have chuckled at the sight of an extremely orthodox magic missile storm had he not been all too aware that his Kryptonian physiology provided him far less resistance against mystical energies than almost anything else he had thus far encountered. He focused his eyes on the oncoming blasts, and flexed his power. His heat vision disrupted the left side of the barrage, and he took advantage of it to fly past the rest without diverting from his course. The mage continued chanting, but Clark sped up, hoping to stop him before he could cast another spell. But- out of the corner of his eye-

Clark cursed and diverted sideways as the magic missiles swept past, having turned around and homed back in on him. He destroyed several more with another wave of his heat vision, only to receive a powerful strike to the back.

Red energy ate at his body, and he winced in pain, diverting yet again to get out of the path of the first man's second attack. He found himself breathing heavily, unusually tired. Was that- Yes, red solar energy of some form. Not enough to put him out of the fight, but he'd have to be cautious and avoid taking repeated strikes. His two opponents moved forward as Clark disrupted the last of the magic missiles. One of them, the mage, wore a uniform that looked vaguely familiar, enough that Clark thought he would recognize it if it wasn't the same black light constructs worn by Nekron. The other wore a slightly ridiculous looking full body jumpsuit and hood. He was a little too elderly and out of shape to really pull the look off, but as he floated in the air with a rod glowing with red energy Clark knew better than to discount him.

Neither had an audible heartbeat.

The mage finished his chant, and called forth sheets of flame, and the battle was rejoined once more.

* * *

 _"He's here,"_ Flash's voice came over the airwaves.

"Damn, we'd better move." Green Lantern started raising a bubble of green light around the two of them, only to stop when a vast quantity of black smoke began pouring out of a nearby alleyway. The artist quickly summoned up a fan construct to clear it away, but a winged man lunged out of the gloom towards J'onn while a handful of smoke bombs went off around the street.

As J'onn dodged around a double-headed axe, he grew concerned. He could sense the masked man's emotions, in a way, but it was... strange. Static, like a picture rather than a changing flow, and shadowed rather than vibrant. Rather than delving into the man's thoughts, J'onn spoke out loud.

"What is your purpose here?"

The only response he received was a swing with a second double-headed axe- except this one was made not of metal, but of black light. J'onn shoved the man back with a burst of telekinesis, and shouted a warning to his ally.

"They wield the same black light as Nekron!"

But he only barely managed to get the words out of his mouth before he was set upon again. J'onn could fly at a good pace, but the winged man seemed untouched by gravity, and each flap of his wings imparted great speed. J'onn could push him back, but each disruption to his flight was short-lived. A change in tactics was required.

J'onn drastically increased his density in his forearms, and caught his enemy's blades upon them, contrary to the man's expectations. Up close, J'onn saw his hawk-like mask was slightly reminiscent of Hawkgirl's, but the wings were in fact artificial. Not a Thanagarian, then. The man flapped his wings, forcing J'onn down towards the ground, and J'onn did not fight it. Instead, shortly before impact, he allowed his shape to change, and twisted around the man's body, pinning him in place. J'onn grasped the man's wings with all his strength, and pulled them in an unnatural direction, and something snapped inside the mechanism. The wings did not, however, break. Whatever they were made of was a truly sturdy material, however J'onn thought that they would not function for at least a short time.

J'onn turned to see his ally, and was shocked to see that the smoke still covered the area where Green Lantern had been. His constructs should have been easily capable of clearing away the debris. He gave a mighty blow to the winged man to keep him down for the moment, and sped towards the smoke, opening his senses. Green Lantern was feeling pain and confusion, while his attacker was very similar mentally to J'onn's opponent. J'onn could not see why Green Lantern was not using his ring effectively, but J'onn easily located both of the humans within the smoke, and in moments was upon Green Lantern's foe, grappling as only a shapeshifter can.

"Green Lantern, are you alright?" J'onn made sure to modulate his voice to show his concern as he pinned the enemy male in place.

"No, this smoke... it's not natural. It's full of the black light Nekron uses, I think. It has some sort of energy-draining property. Every time I try to use my power ring for anything I start losing ring charge like crazy, so I stopped making constructs, but that just let him throw more of those smokebombs, and I could only get a few hits in. He hits way harder than a regular person, too." Green Lantern stood off from the roiling ball of shapeshifter and human that he could hear to his right, not wanting to risk jumping in blind.

J'onn focused an image of the direction he had come from and sent it towards Green Lantern's mind. "A little to the right, yes, there," he corrected. "I temporarily damaged my foe's wings, before leaving to come to your aid. Once you exit the smoke, you should be able to handle him. I believe," J'onn entrapped the man's legs once more, "that I have this situation well in hand."

"Thanks!" Green Lantern called out as he raced away.

* * *

The problem with starting at a lower speed than an enemy speedster, Barry was learning, was that if they were good at what they were doing they _stayed_ faster than you. Even now, the black-clad speedster was nothing more than a blur in his vision. Obviously, the... he wasn't sure whether it was a man or a woman to be honest... the person was aligned with Nekron, though he couldn't imagine what they'd been promised to get them to join up with an omnicidal death elemental. He... was pretty sure this wasn't Professor Zoom. He'd like to say that was because the man wasn't that crazy and wore different colors, but mostly it was that Zoom had never been nearly this awesome. Whoever this guy or gal was, they knew what they were doing.

But not quite as well as Barry did.

They weren't making any mistakes, weren't stumbling or make route choices that lost them significant momentum, weren't cornering at bad times, weren't trying to be clever and lose energy by phasing through things when they didn't have to... but they didn't quite know how to _push_ like Barry did. There was a certain complacency to their motions, a lack of effort, for lack of a better way to put it. And that wasn't how you kept an edge. With speedster powers, it wasn't like athletics. For track and field athletes, how much you can do on the field when the time comes is determined by how many hours you've put in before, whether you've been spending them productively, how good your nutrition plan was, that sort of thing. Then, you push it as hard as you can when the time comes and make it count.

For a speedster, you can't meaningfully effect your top speed or your acceleration or your ability for fine movement, that all depended on your powers. You could get a little better with practice, and a lot better at using your powers with cleverness, but beyond that, if everything else was equal, it was about how hard you were willing and able to push. You say, I'm going to be there to save that little girl from getting shot, no matter what. You say, I'll defuse that bomb before it goes off, and save everyone. You say, the sound barrier won't be my limit. The speed of light won't be my limit. I'll run as fast as I have to run. When you're fighting for something precious, you can't give up.

Here's what it means to be the Flash, Barry thinks, racing between hills. You run that first mile. Then you run another mile. Another ten miles. Another thousand miles.

The bad guy's black fists race towards Barry, unnaturally strong. But he'd only gotten one good hit. Barry wouldn't let him get another. He can see his enemy's movements.

You run around the whole damn world if you have to, Barry thinks, running between the ticks of a second. When you think you've got nothing left, you reach deep inside and find more. If you run fast enough, run far enough, run well enough, you'll reach your destination. Jay had taught him that. When people need you, you don't slow down.

You. Speed. _Up._

His opponent doesn't get a moment to understand. They're still moving fast, but it's lackluster. It's not enough. Their heart isn't in it like Barry's is. He's going to knock them down, and he'll go back Superman up and they'll beat down Nekron and they'll get Shikako her body back and the kids up on the Watchtower will get to go home and he'll go home to Iris with a smile on his face. And with that in mind, he slams his fist right in the bad guy's... face?

W-what? Jay?

The next coherent feeling Barry has is pain, as the man slams a jackhammer of a fist into Barry's ribs. Barry feels himself sent flying, but the- the man with Jay's face doesn't let up. And, and Barry feels like he's in shock, but he moves. He keeps moving. He can't let himself get hit again. He's not tough like Wonder Woman, J'onn and Superman are. He can't afford to spend desperate minutes healing broken bones right now. He has to keep moving. How the hell does that bastard have his dead mentor's face?

Damn it, he thinks, between beats of a heart. I screwed up. Please, hold on a while longer-

* * *

The Life Entity stumbled, Shikako's limbs feeling heavy. There was, Shikako knew a trick for dealing with things like this, but Shikako was, just so tired...

"How?" They said with Shikako's voice, fighting to stay awake.

"Because it doesn't hurt you on its own," Nekron gloated. "A life elemental being hurt by mundane poison? A lost cause. But medicine?" He patted the gas-gun the man with the gas-mask was holding as he walked towards her. "Hypo-allergenic sleeping gas. Doesn't hurt you at all, and sleep is certainly part of life. If you weren't so full of yourself, so foolishly sure you couldn't be hurt by a little gas, I could have gotten a more... exciting conclusion to this. I can hardly believe it worked. But I'll take it, and your life with it."

He brought out a scythe, and try as they might, their host body's eyes... slid... shut.

* * *

Clark raced forward, ignoring the blasts that struck his now unguarded back. The pain didn't matter, if he didn't-

The man with the rod dropped down before him, and he slammed straight into a forcefield. One, two strikes, and it shattered and he threw them aside, but it had slowed him, and he wasn't going to make it.

He tried anyway.

But the scythe swung down-

And was stopped by a glowing tower shield of green light. Clark grinned, looking up at... was that the Justice Society's Green Lantern? Suddenly, the pieces began to click together. Oh. That-

"Let my friends go, you son of a bitch!" The original Green Lantern growled as he blasted Nekron into the ground with emerald power.

* * *

Batman and Zatara entered the Watchtower's lounge to the sight of most of the League being somewhat battered. The children were watching over Shikako's unconscious form, still glowing white, in the corner. In a chair off to one side, trying to wave off a fussing Wonder Woman, sat an exhausted-looking old man in a red and green outfit with a cape and a stylized lantern on his shirt.

"How did it go?" Batman asked.

"We drove him off," Superman said solemnly, "but given what happened... I don't think we can really call it a win."

* * *

In which: Nekron's strategy is actually surprisingly well thought out and he gets a lucky break that's immediately interrupted by an enraged Alan Scott, Barry hesitates to punch one of the people he most respects in the face (which is normally not a bad thing, but it's an inopportune moment), J'onn and Kyle have their opponents escape (because beating a zombie to unconsciousness and tying them up just ends with them waking up five minutes later and escaping) but make up for it by showing up to help drive Nekron's forces away, and the Life Entity learns that while she can keep her host body awake indefinitely, it makes it a lot harder to call on their tactical thinking skills (read: Shikako hasn't slept in almost 72 hours at this point, oops).

Now, as I mentioned before, here's the abbreviated summary of each of the zombies. I know that anyone interested will just look them up on a wiki anyway so I figure I can save you the trouble. All of them possess the ability to channel the Black Light of Death, but most tend to stick to what they know because, well, being undead doesn't do wonders for your mental flexibility.

Wesley Dodds (Sandman) is a baseline normal except for prophetic dreams, who fights with his body and a hypoallergenic sleeping gas-gun (he wears a gas mask so it doesn't affect him). Due to being a zombie, is no longer a baseline normal. At one point developed a super-science weapon that let him produce and manipulate sand, but unlike most super-science weapons in DC this one's prototype turned out really badly and a close friend got hurt when it exploded on him. Wesley's zombie isn't going to risk the same thing happening to him, so don't expect that to show up at all. He did a lot of detective work, used his dreams to help solve cases. That's probably not going to show up either.

Ted Knight (Starman) is a science hero that developed a way to utilize cosmic energy, who fights with a Gravity Rod (it's the prototype of the better Cosmic Rod, but his descendants are wielding his best stuff to continue his legacy). Starman's tech gives him flight, energy blasts (including red stellar energy blasts, so watch out Superman) and force fields. The Cosmic Rod was better, and had a couple other powers like telekinesis and being attuned to its user (which is the reason why Nekron isn't going to have him go after it, since attunement takes a while). As an undead, his physiology is improved.

Kent Nelson is the host of Nabu, an order elemental of no small power that lived in a helmet he owned, and when he wore the Helmet of Fate and timeshared his body he was called Doctor Fate. He and Nabu had a falling out, where Kent wanted to retire and start a family and Nabu... wasn't keen on the thought. Nabu's increasingly blatant attempts to sabotage Kent's personal life eventually led to Kent sticking the Helmet in a secret location under a bunch of binding and concealment spells (Kent is himself a pretty good magician, though not world-class without Nabu). He, um, didn't quite tell the story that way when Wonder Woman asked him about it. Regardless, very competent and experienced magic user. Nekron wisely decided not to try messing with Nabu, since he can only control the dead, which Nabu is not. Has the benefit of undead physiology, but if he has to punch someone he isn't doing his job right.

Charles McNider (Doctor Mid-Nite) was a baseline normal, except for his ability to see perfectly in complete darkness. Conversely, he is completely blind in well-lit areas. Uses blackout smoke bombs and a special visor to take full advantage of the fact that when his opponent can't see him, he can still see them and kick their ass with his martial arts skills. Also, a legit medical doctor. His owl sidekick, Hooty, is currently the only occupant of the JSA cemetery, because Nekron couldn't see any reason to resurrect it. Now featuring undead strength.

Jay Garrick (Flash) has super-speed, and taught Barry some tricks back while he was still alive. Like anyone to bear the Flash legacy, he is incredibly dangerous when pressed, even more so now that he has super-strength and super-endurance due to being undead.

Carter Hall (Hawkman) has artificial wings, an anti-gravity belt, and melee weapon skills. He's human, not Thanagarian, but may have been one in a past life. Was tough when alive, and being undead has only made him tougher and stronger.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note:

It occurs to me that I should clarify about Zatara. In Earth-? he's a good twenty years older than Batman, and used to be a good friend of Batman's parents before the shooting. Bruce never got back in touch, but Batman eventually did. He's a decent combatant, but not Justice League level in this universe. His daughter Zatanna exists, and is making inroads in the stage magician business. Her involvement in actual magic has thus far been pretty low key, but it's really only a matter of time…

As usual, you don't need to know any of that. Zatanna isn't going to show up in this story. I just like sharing.

* * *

Zatara murmured divination spells as he passed a white gloved hand through the air above Shikako's sleeping body. He shivered at the power he sensed coming from within.

"I fear that attempting to drive the elemental out would not end well," Zatara admitted. "If it truly does not self-identify with a name, it is difficult to get a grip on it. Names are... a way to interact with others. If it had a name, I could, in principle, call upon it for aid. So, it claiming no name is a statement of non-interference with the physical plane. Now, practically, this is an area where my expertise is limited, but I do not see an easy way to separate the two. Not completely, at any rate. I might achieve some success, but I am no great archmage, and this is an incredibly powerful elemental. So long as Shikako is even slightly welcoming of it..."

Shiho interrupted. "Welcoming? What do you mean, _welcoming?_ "

"Possessions require... hooks," the magician said. "Truly, completely unwilling possessions are incredibly difficult to accomplish. It isn't like she called upon it to enter her, but there are other things. Sometimes, ghosts will prey on loneliness or a drive for vengeance. Demons will prey on desire for power, and dark emotions, evil intentions, that sort of thing. For an elemental... alignment of purpose, I suspect, though this is an uncommon event."

"So, you are saying that she agrees with its goals?" Batman mused.

"It appeared in her dreams first, yes?"

Shiho nodded. "She, didn't realize what was happening, and had trouble remembering, but after the glowing eyes thing happened she guessed that that was how it started."

"For this to have occurred in a matter of days, she must have a natural talent as a shaman," Zatara thought out loud. Which... wasn't necessarily a good thing. That was a talent that very much required training lest... well, this entire experience sufficed as a cautionary tale. "It probably showed her its intentions, but without training, she was unable to maintain that knowledge upon awakening. Really, given what Nekron is up to, it is unsurprising that she welcomed it in, albeit unconsciously. Consider what it has done so far: it brought Shikako's friends to a place of safety and aid, counteracted Nekron's attempts to wipe out all life in the universe, talked with some people, and fell asleep. It hasn't done anything Shikako would really object to, unless my assessment of her character is truly off."

"Except for the possession thing," Shiho pointed out dryly.

"If she truly considered that an unconscionable violation, it would be rather obvious," Zatara said as he stood back from her sleeping form. "Most possessions fail not because of any outside aid from those such as myself, but because the possessing entity attempts to force the host to violate some character trait, vow, or moral stance that is intrinsic to the host. Superman, Flash," he turned towards them, "you have spent the most time with the elemental. What is your assessment of its character?"

Flash glanced at Superman before speaking up. "It has a very different view on the world than most people do, and I'm not sure it has any concept of 'sympathy' but... I kind of have a hard time considering it a bad guy."

Superman nodded. "I think its biggest flaw is that it just... doesn't really care about things like suffering and death. It wouldn't let someone die in front of it, but..." He snapped his fingers. "Ah! You are probably familiar with the argument about why God doesn't intervene to prevent terrible things from happening?" Most of the others nodded with varying degrees of assertiveness, while Shiho shrugged and the Martian Manhunter waved him on. "The usual conclusion is that it would violate free will. Well, the elemental is kind of like that, except it doesn't claim any moral superiority because it doesn't care about morality at all. It really cares more about people having the free will to experience life in its full range, including all the bad parts, and even including death, than it does about being benevolent."

Zatara smiled. "Well, that should make things easier. To be honest, if that's the case you have very little to worry about. I assume you asked it to leave? How did it respond?"

"It said that we wouldn't be able to get rid of it, the three of us, I mean, so we should accept the situation," Shiho recalled. "And that it had a noble purpose to serve, that it understood it was inconvenient, and that Shikako had welcomed it, though not consciously."

"We didn't really want to press, since we were mostly worried about it vanishing on us at the time," Flash considered, "but I did ask it to come back to the Watchtower, and it said, um, that she didn't plan on letting us have the chance to come up with a plan to remove it and execute it until... the crisis had passed." He groaned, smacking himself on the forehead. "Oh, wow, I totally missed that."

Zatara nodded along as they spoke. "Given what we know, I rather suspect we will not need to resort to force. I can make some preparations, just in case... If nothing else, I can set up a ritual to send a being back to its home plane. It won't be any good while the elemental is in a host body, so I will have to do some more research on that front. Plan for the worst, and all that."

"Please do so," Superman requested. "After all, there definitely is at least one elemental running around that we very much need to forcibly be rid of."

"Yes, and that one has a name," Zatara considered. Nekron... Maybe he could come up with something. "I don't normally make artifacts, but I'm feeling a little inspired. I doubt I'll have it done in the time-frame your battle against Nekron will conclude, but given the threat he poses, a little planning ahead may be worthwhile. I'll put together a small... containment unit, so to speak. If one of you can trap a little of the Black Light in it, I can get together with a few colleagues and try to make an amulet specialized for dealing with him. You've seen the sort of thing I'm talking about before, I imagine?"

"Glows in his presence, defends against his magic, that sort of thing?" Flash nodded.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," Zatara agreed. He then had a rather dark thought, and winced. "...Though I suppose if he wins, I shan't have the chance. Batman has my number. If you need anything else..." He looked at them leadingly.

"Just... how do you think we should handle his... revenants," Flash asked grimly.

"...They aren't the people they once were," Zatara advised. "After this incident, I'd recommend respectfully cremating the remains, to purify any lingering energies, so... don't hold back."

He picked up top hat from the table where he had set it down, and let Batman lead the way out of the room.

* * *

"So how are you feeling, Alan?"

Alan rolled his eyes as Diana gently, but firmly, manhandled him into a chair at his kitchen table. "I'm feeling like an old man. What do you want me to say, Diana? A necromancer turns my dead friends to the cause of evil, I take so long getting my ring that I'm almost too late, and then I waste most of my charge bouncing an energy absorber off rocks to little effect. Today has just been _fantastic,_ really."

"The way I see it, you saved a little girl's life, saved the world, and stopped our friends' bodies being used to kill people," Diana corrected as she fished food out of his fridge. "Not bad for a man in his eighties. Did you remember to take your arthritis medication this morning?"

"Yes, mother, I did," Alan sighed. "And I don't really want to hear that from the woman who was in her sixties when she first met me."

"Don't feel bad, most people don't age as gracefully as I do," Diana grinned shamelessly, before looking at him glumly. "I will miss you, you know. It hasn't even been a century yet, and already practically everyone from back then seems to be at death's door or past it. I'm still not used to it, really. When I go back home, everything is just like I left it, but people out here change so quickly..."

"You've picked yourself up another good crew," Alan said with a smile. "They're a good bunch of kids; they'll look after you when I'm gone. Hopefully last a good bit longer, too. Healthcare these days is worlds better than what we had to suffer through. And, you know, I've heard rumors about you and Superman..." He waggled his eyebrows, and caught the orange she tossed at his head. Without missing a beat, he set to work pealing it.

"They're all in the cute kid stage from my perspective," Diana said as she moved the selection of sandwich-makings she'd found on the table with a couple of plates. "I do know Superman's species is supposed to be pretty long-lived, so who knows what the situation will be like this time next century, but I'm not going to bother making any plans."

"Sandwiches?" Alan asked 'innocently'. "Not going to try wrangling my stove this time?"

Diana snorted. "Not a chance. I've learned my lesson. Any cooking I do will involve actual flames at some stage of the process. You can keep those terrible electric coils for your own use, thank you very much."

* * *

"So what does it look like?" Shiho asked Hanabi once they finally had the lounge to just themselves and Shikako's unconscious form. "Any ideas?"

Her byakugan couldn't… couldn't really _see_ the energies involved. Not like it showed chakra so clearly. But there were signs. Chakra left… ripples was the best way she had to put it, on the world around it. Energy manipulation of all sorts left that sort of sign, like a wake behind the prow of a ship. With her byakugan active, she could see that sort of thing if she looked for it very carefully.

So looking at Shikako wasn't blinding. Hanabi couldn't see the elemental. But trying to see it left her feeling seasick.

"It isn't inside her chakra system," Hanabi said slowly. "It's just… sort of there. But not physically present. I could block her tenketsu, but that would only stop her from using jutsu. The elemental's power wouldn't be inhibited at all, so it will just leave again when she wakes up."

"And being weakened when going into a fight could get her killed," Shiho concluded glumly. "Better not. We could try keeping her unconscious, but we'd run out of knock-out tags eventually…"

"So we can't do anything?" Chiyako sounded greatly disappointed. "But, she's right here! We have to be able to do something, right?"

Shiho just sighed, and gave the little Aburame a hug.

Hanabi shook her head slowly, and canceled her byakugan. "I think we should try waiting for it to leave on its own. We can't compel it now… but maybe the specialist the Justice League brought in can come through with something. Patience is necessary here."

"I don't like relying on them for everything," Shiho admitted. "I mean, I know we need the help, but…"

"There's a time and place for pride."

"They're nice. I think we can trust them."

Shiho nodded. "You're both right. I just don't like feeling useless."

"Okay," Chiyako nodded thoughtfully. "Tell us a story!"

Shiho grimaced. "You could at least pretend you think I'm actually getting somewhere with the portal, you know."

Chiyako batted her eyelashes at the kunoichi while Hanabi rolled her eyes.

"I feel so loved," Shiho muttered. "I am getting somewhere… slowly. But, fine. What sort of story?"

Well, if Shiho was offering… "A ninja story." Obviously.

Chiyako nodded in agreement. Shiho sighed.

"Geeze. Well, Aoba did tell me about the first mission he ever went on with Shikako," Shiho mused leadingly.

Chiyako sat up ramrod straight. Hanabi just raised an eyebrow. No need to look too fascinated… but given the stories Hinata had told her about Shikako's missions, this was certain to be interesting.

* * *

"No, Abigail, just keep an eye out. Alan and I will handle this. Call in a few more security guards, and make sure someone in every shift has my number." Wonder Woman paced around the room, talking into a mobile phone. "Just, keep yourself safe."

"Nothing?" Kyle asked her once she hung up.

"Well, Nekron did show up at the JSA museum," Wonder Woman told him. "He just teleported in, grabbed a few pieces of equipment for his revenants, and left. The security system didn't stand a chance. One of the security guards on the night shift tried to stop him, but…" She sighed. "Abigail is just about spitting nails, but she's much too frail to actually do anything about it. I'll have to stop by after all of this is over, cheer her up."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were calling the curator?"

"Abigail wasn't always a curator," Wonder Woman glanced at him, and then grinned cheekily. "She used to run a grocery store."

"And now I'm curious," Kyle had to admit. "Was she the original Black Canary?"

"Red Tornado," Wonder Woman said deadpan.

Kyle scrutinized her, unsure whether she was serious. Wonder Woman started to smirk at him. Her being a princess, Kyle was always a little thrown off when she displayed her sense of humor. It clashed with expectations a bit.

"I honestly have no idea if you're serious or not," Kyle gave in. Red Tornado was, if he remembered correctly, a rather burly person with no overt powers that he could recall. Also, he had been under the impression that Red Tornado was a man. Would someone actually go so far as to obscure their gender when fighting crime?

Kyle had a hard time imagining it, but then being a Green Lantern was literally his job. He hadn't actually done artwork for money since he got the Ring. He wore the mask to help protect his family, but it wasn't really a disguise like some costumes were. This was a uniform. Being a Green Lantern was the very opposite of hiding yourself. It was about being a light in the darkness that evil couldn't miss or hide from, and destroying evil wherever you found it. If someone didn't have the self-confidence for that, it was hard to imagine that they'd be able to use the Ring at all.

Well, not every superhero needed an indomitable will like a Green Lantern but he didn't think any of them were insecure. Setting everything else aside, the outfits alone took a lot of gumption. Maybe the social situation had just been different back then? Gender equality was still a work in progress, so back in the forties maybe… but then Black Canary and Wonder Woman certainly hadn't bothered hiding _anything_. Seriously, those costumes… no, don't get distracted.

"You can come meet her if you want," Wonder Woman offered cheerfully.

"I'll probably have to miss out," Kyle said, a little regretfully. "I'll need to go back to Oa after this. They'll need me to report on all of this in person."

Wonder Woman nodded understandingly. "Well, she'd be pleased at the opportunity, so consider it an open offer." She scrolled through her phone's contact list again, and placed another call.

"Sadie? Yes, it's Diana. Could you pass Jack the phone? Thank you…" Wonder Woman waited for a few moments, and then grimaced at the question that came down the line. "No, I'm sorry; this isn't really a social call. You shouldn't be in danger for now, but I wanted to be the one to warn you that we're having trouble with a necromancer, and your father…"

Kyle decided to leave Wonder Woman to it. Some conversations weren't meant to be pried into.

* * *

"We apologize for not taking care of this form's limitations," the Life Entity said very earnestly to Chiyako and Hanabi while Shiho's snores emerged from behind a stack of physics texts. "We initially expected a swift conclusion of our battle with Nekron, and failed to reconsider appropriately after Nekron withdrew."

"Is Nee-chan okay in there?" Chiyako held onto Shikako's head with her hands and turned it back and forth slightly, while looking inside her eyes, like she expected to see a little Shikako in there if she looked hard enough. Hanabi had to hold back a snort at the mental image.

"Her mental fortitude is restored," the Life Entity assured them. "It is a very noticeable improvement. We believe that we know the best way to deal with Nekron now. Are you safe and healthy here? We can relocate you if you prefer."

"I'd be better if I had Shikako back," Chiyako looked at the Life Entity hopefully, and tried resorting to pouting when she was rebuffed. It didn't work.

Hanabi shook her head. "I feel confident that the people here are trying to look out for our interests. We'll stay here until we get Shikako back, so you absolutely aren't allowed to get her killed, understood?" She lectured the elemental. "And if you don't give her back when Nekron is gone, we'll find a way to get rid of you, so don't even think about keeping her!"

Shiho bolted upright at Hanabi's raised voice, and, kunai drawn, readied herself to lunge towards the noise. Unfortunately, she just ended up tripping over a chair leg and her head slammed onto the table-top.

"Gah! Who- Shikako- No, it's still you," she concluded, giving the elemental a disgruntled glare. "Go back to your home plane already."

"We are pleased to see that you are well," the Life Entity smiled joyfully at her, which only served to make Shiho more annoyed. "This one is once more fully recovered. The crisis should be resolved shortly. Please look after the children in this one's stead for a little while longer."

"Hmph. I can do that much."

* * *

J'onn did not hover for this meditation. Containing and focusing himself was not the goal here. Instead, he set himself free.

His humanoid form melted away, his limbs becoming multi-jointed, his hands becoming three-fingered and clawed, plates of higher density flesh rising in places. His almost-human face became unrecognizable.

But he did not stop. Setting aside his thoughts of shape, he cast his mind out. Somewhere on this world, an enemy to all life had gone to ground. He could not track Nekron precisely enough to be useful.

But he knew the elemental was on the North American continent. He could start there, looking for six rather peculiar thought-patterns he had recently encountered.

And as his mind spread out over the land, so did his body to a lesser degree. He rooted himself into the earth to keep himself from moving too far, and then allowed himself to shift without further thought. As he reached across the sky, so his branches spread out from his indomitable trunk. As he peered close, his leaves grew out, and as he found his targets he burst into bloom.

It took long minutes to gather himself back together, all the thoughts and feelings and memories, before he could slowly compact his body back into its normal form.

Superman waited patiently, trusting that J'onn would come through.

J'onn opened his eyes, once more the Martian Manhunter.

"California," J'onn said out loud, too mentally exhausted to want to speak directly into Superman's mind. "Gateway City."

* * *

In which: the Life Entity acts in a consistent manner and once everyone puts the pieces together they can focus more on just beating the hell out of Nekron, Zatara's attitude towards preparation demonstrates why he's in Batman's circle of friends, Wonder Woman has to make some calls to warn past allies about Nekron's actions and... some people talk to each other, I guess. And Nekron is about to be the one on the defensive for once.

Also, a noodle incident remains as such. But if you must know, what happened on the mission with Aoba is-

-and that's how, sixteen hours later, they ended up twenty miles from where they started, staring at the bonfire Aoba had set as it burnt itself out. The intelligence pickup was a success, though it wasn't exactly standard operating procedure.

And now you know.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note:

This one doesn't have much new stuff added, unlike last chapter. Mostly just editing work.

Probably the most annoying thing about this editing process has been that some characters capitalize the Black Light and the White Light in certain contexts, among other nouns (Spectrum of Life, Glow, etc.) while others don't. It depends on how much importance they attach to the words. Nekron, for example, throws capital letters around like crazy, while Alan Scott is rather more irreverent (to him, Nekron isn't The Embodiment of the Black Light of Death, Nekron's 'that damned necromancer with the annoying energy absorption power'). Out of the Justice League, Barry Allen is the one who is most likely to think of things like the White Light in Capital Letters because of how he views his superhero work.

Barry's a bit of a jokester at times, but being The Flash for the Justice League is like being part of the Knights of the Round Table as far as he's concerned. To Barry, living up to that lightning bolt isn't a choice so much as it is a calling.

* * *

"I'll handle Jay," Barry told them resolutely.

"Are you sure?" Clark asked. "It's probably the best way to handle it, but we're a team. We're strong enough together that there's no need for you to-"

"No, I think I need to do this," Flash told him. "I want to lay him to rest myself. Flinching back from doing the right thing... that's not the kind of hero he taught me to be. I'll do it."

Clark inclined his head respectfully. "Alright. Kent Nelson. I think we'll have to rely on your lasso if we want to stop his magic, Wonder Woman."

She simply nodded, fingering the mystical artifact.

"Junior and I can handle Ted and Carter," Alan spoke up. "Won't be much use against Nekron or Charles, and I'm not sure what Wesley's zombie has up its sleeves."

"Who are you calling Junior, Senior?" Kyle lightheartedly mocked the old man, before turning serious. "I should probably take Hawkman, since I know his tricks from last time. I'm not really familiar with Starman."

Alan nodded in agreement, so Kyle continued to speak.

"I'll have to report on this to Oa directly after all of this is done. That black light is way too good at dealing with our rings. The Guardians will want to find a way for the Corps to be able to fight it effectively. I just hope it doesn't take as long as that stupid weakness to yellow objects..."

Alan blinked at Kyle, befuddled. "Eh? Yellow? Never had a problem with it. Now, wood on the other hand..."

"Wood? You're wearing a hyper-advanced xenotech law enforcement tool!" Kyle exclaimed. "What kind of stupid design flaw makes a space cop weak to arrows?"

"No idea," Alan shrugged. "Stopped having trouble with it after four or five years, never really figured out what was up with that."

"I will combat Sandman while Martian Manhunter deals with Doctor Mid-Nite again," Batman spoke up over them. "Zatara has supplied us with three paper talismans that should be able to capture a very tiny amount of the black light. I assume that Green Lantern Junior-"

"Hey! Wait, was that a joke?"

"-would appreciate a sample to bring to his superiors, and Zatara has already mentioned the potential use of them in preparing for any further problems we may have with wielders of the black light of death, and Nekron in particular." Batman passed one to J'onn, another to Clark, and hesitated on passing one to the amused Life Entity.

"If we were to carry it, it would be our Light that it contained," the elemental informed him, but paused to consider it and reached out to touch it. "Perhaps... yes, it may be useful in time." She put down the, now slightly glowing, talisman to one side. Clark wasn't sure if 'useful' was meant to be a good thing or not. "We assume that Superman will aid us in defeating Nekron?"

"That's the plan," Clark said. "It might be a bit belated to ask this, but what do we need to do to defeat him, exactly? I've assumed destroying his body would do it, but..."

"We intend to purge the Black Light from his host body and resurrect it with our White Light."

Clark blinked. He opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. There were a lot of things he was tempted to say, and he could see that the others were similarly affected, but by silent agreement none spoke out. "Why resurrect him, exactly?" Clark asked. "My understanding of your position on the topic was... rather contrary to that. Death being a natural part of life, and so on."

"Resurrection is indeed unnatural and contrary to the proper course of the universe," she said bluntly. "However, to completely remove Nekron's far more unnatural influence on this realm, we must disrupt the ritual that called him here, or we have no doubt some cleverness or another will lead to him finding another way to manifest on this plane in the near future. To be perfectly honest, we expect the host body will not live a very long second life, given what Nekron has put it through, but the suicide that was the cornerstone of Nekron's summoning will have been undone."

"...Facial analysis has identified the host body as William Hand," Batman spoke in a low growl. "Preliminary evidence suggests that he killed his entire family-"

"The penultimate preparation for the summoning," the Life Entity said sadly. "Nekron has spoken to him in his dreams for years now, and once William began to listen we began our own attempts to enter this plane. This one's arrival on this plane was fortuitously timed."

"...Let's go end this," Alan said, and it was promise.

* * *

Here's the thing about being a death elemental: it makes it easy to find where the bodies are buried.

Yet, he couldn't find this one.

He had checked the obvious places first. The Justice Society's cemetery. Gotham. The places the man he was looking for had performed his, rather memorable, work.

Gateway City was one of those places, but more promisingly was a place regularly frequented by Wonder Woman for no readily apparent reason. But, clearly, whatever it was that drew the heroine to the city, it was not Jim Corrigan's grave.

Nekron grit his teeth together and pettily kicked over a vase of flowers by a tombstone as Jay finished his futile search of the city's cemeteries. Nekron knew where Corrigan had died, but the Spectre had risen from that death with purpose and, more importantly to Nekron's mind, with vast power. If he could raise Corrigan as his servant, the tables would not merely tip in his favor, but turn completely. The other revenants that he had called from the grave would simply gift wrap his victory.

Events thus far had not gone to Nekron's liking. Earth's heroes had emerged to oppose him. The dead he had raised were either middling as heroes went or, in the cases of Starman and Doctor Fate, not in possession of their greatest tools of power. Ted Knight's cosmic rod was attuned to his successor Stargirl, and while Kent Nelson now served him, the order elemental Nabu did not. Only Jay Garrick could truly stand against the powerhouses of the Justice League as an equal. His one moment of good fortune had been stolen away from him mere moments before his victory, and William Hand's body had begun to weaken under the strength of the Black Light he was forced to use to absorb the power of the elderly Green Lantern, forcing him to withdraw upon the arrival of the Martian Manhunter and the young Green Lantern lest his own power unmake his link to the physical plane.

And now, now his mastery of death failed to provide him with the one answer that could assure him of accomplishing his goal. The memories of dying beings gave him many answers, but not this one. How had this come to be? Had the man's corpse been retroactively erased from existence? Had some great and powerful wizard cast a concealment spell strong enough to hide the tomb from death itself? Not for the first time this day, Nekron seriously considered attempting to bring Nabu under his thrall. Doctor Fate was weaker than Nekron, yes, but his more flexible powers and world-class strength would make discovering the grave Nekron now sought a simple task. But... no, it was specifically because Nekron's powers were narrow in scope that such was impossible.

The problem was, Nekron needed to kill the Life Entity and so could only spend so much of his strength before battling it. He was at an advantage because of his conceptual superiority to his foe, so he could afford to impart a fraction of his power to animate assistants to defend him from the Justice League's intrusion into his destined triumph, but he wasn't foolish enough to spread his strength too thin. The Justice Society had been an obvious choice. They had emerged as the heroes of the day above all the many villains. Or more to the point, they had won. History is written by the victors, after all.

If he couldn't have the Spectre, then surely there was someone else with sufficient power to allow him to drive back the heroes? Solomon Grundy had already been vaporized this week, so the energy-efficient option of picking up the Earth's most persistent undead wasn't viable. Most of the truly powerful villains of this world had- Wait. Teth Adom. Theo Adam was currently using his soul as a battery to be Black Adam, but the original version was dead. A strong power, capable of going toe to toe with Superman- but, would the powers of Black Adam go to the raised version? They were granted by his gods, not inherent, after all. Yet, it was very tempting to at least make the attempt, given the capabilities of the man.

Now, Nekron considered, where were Teth Adom's remains? He immersed his thoughts in the memories of the dying, reaching far farther back than usua-

Red lightning flashed across the cemetery, and before Nekron could even react, Jay Garrick had vanished. That was- The Flash! Somehow, the Justice League had found him! Too late, he set his revenants to counteract the attacks he knew were coming, and even as Starman and Hawkman were thrust away from their defensive positions above him with constructs of lambent emerald light Nekron found himself struck, full-speed, in the chest by Superman. The hero shoulder-checked him, driving him through the air away from his undead allies, towards the waiting Life Entity, who weaved a web of White Light before him.

Refusing to be taken down so easily, Nekron managed to slash an arm at the trap he was approaching, scattering most of it with claws of Black Light. The remnants he passed through burned with the Glow of life, and Nekron felt William's body spasm helplessly until he managed to subsume the fragments of the Glow. Superman wasted no time in planting him head-first into the ground before Nekron could even think of counter-attacking, and Nekron found himself forced to stumble out of the crater, using his Black Light to make up for the fact that much of his upper body was crushed bone. He'd protected William's brain at least, though it had been a near thing.

He'd never felt pain himself before coming to Earth. He didn't like the experience.

As vines of White Light swarmed him from all around the pre-planned trap Superman had dropped him right in the middle of, Nekron swore that this would not be how it ended. His victory was inevitable! Death would overcome life, and all off the cursed lights would go out forever!

Black fire leaking from his eyes, Nekron launched himself into battle.

* * *

Batman moved silently through the tombstones as combat raged around him. It was a futile hope to actually be unseen here, it being the middle of the day in a flat area with the memorials being rather too small and too widely spaced to effectively hide a man his size.

But his target was occupied with trying to aid Doctor Mid-Nite's battle against Martian Manhunter with his gas gun, and sometimes the element of surprise is all about being swift-footed and quiet. Sandman wasn't looking his way. Hawkman and Doctor Fate had seen him at various points, but the revenants weren't a true team. They worked together to an extent, but they didn't communicate. They didn't call out advice or warning.

Wesley Dodds had no combat-related superpowers in life, but undeath had granted the man the same prodigious strength, stamina, and recovery speed as the rest of the zombies.

Batman made no effort to get any closer to Sandman, instead launching a batarang into the revenant's back. The powerful throw sent the weapon's edge through the man's trenchcoat and, fortunately, stuck in place, imbedding itself on flesh and bone. As the revenant turned his gas-gun in Batman's direction, Batman threw three more batarangs in succession. Sandman caught the one that had been aimed for the mechanisms of his weapon, while the other two, sent to bracket the zombie, struck hard-packed earth and an old tombstone.

Wesley didn't immediately approach, and Batman pretended to fall to one knee as if he hadn't bothered to bring a rebreather with a filtration system to defend himself from his target's favored weapon. Grasping the two triggers, he triggered the electric shock on the batarang that Sandman had caught, and gave it a moment to do what damage it could to the undead's physiology before activating the detonator on the explosive still stuck in Sandman's back.

There was a limit to how powerful you could make an explosive that size, and still carry it around and throw it without fear of it exploding when you didn't want it to. So it was only expected that Sandman pushed himself up off the ground and lunged forward, gas gun left where it had fallen. Batman was just disappointed that he hadn't managed to take a limb off.

Batman rolled to the side, and as Sandman's fist narrowly missed him, he reached into his utility belt once more.

Fighting creatures like this when he had the capabilities of a human was always risky and could end in his death with a single misstep. But while Batman was human, he would never let himself be _just_ human. If you are prepared, you have victory in your grasp. If you are not prepared, then death is knocking at your door.

Batman had survived this long with the best in the world. That wasn't going to change today.

* * *

Diana smashed through a wall after a poor prediction of Kent's next spell left her flatfooted. It didn't hurt her at all, really, but it wasted time. Every moment a mage was active on the other side of the battlefield was a moment that experienced warned her that something might be about to go horribly wrong for her side. When this was over, she decided as she deflected a flurry of bolts with her enchanted arm guards, she was going to find the Justice League a battlemage, even if that meant she had to train them in the 'battle' part personally.

She threw a piece of rubble at Kent, forcing him to pause to defend himself. A shout from off to the side gave her a warning that the revenant didn't heed, much to his misfortune, as Hawkman was born down upon the mage by emerald shackles and not one but three ball-and-chains. Carter's anti-gravity belt floated off to the Kyle's side, unfastened by some clever trickery on the artist's part.

Wasting no time, Diana threw out the Lasso of Truth which she had readied at Kyle's behest, and both revenants fell still as the artifact's charm bound them. The mystic glow of Kent's powers faded, and the black light battleaxe Carter had been attempting to free himself with flaked into nothingness.

"I'll have to stay holding the Lasso to keep them bound," Diana told the younger Green Lantern. "Go help the others!"

* * *

Alan pinned Ted's corpse to the floor with a giant nail, though he could see the black light infusing his friend's body already beginning to eat into the construct. It wouldn't be enough.

As Alan called forth a greatsword of emerald light, he felt... disappointed in the revenant. It was an insult to Ted's memory. It didn't fly like the real thing. It didn't fight with every ounce of effort. It had a measure of Ted's skill, but it lacked his brilliance, his innovativeness, the spark that had made Starman great.

So for the sake of his friend, he swung down, severing the arm holding the Gravity Rod at the shoulder in a strike not powered by his withered muscles but by his indomitable will. He tore the rod from the now-limp hand with a set of green tongs.

"Rest in peace, old friend," Green Lantern said, and brought the full might of his will upon the corpse.

* * *

Barry didn't hesitate this time. But with the additional resilience being undead granted Jay, Barry's flawless initial strike didn't quite end the battle. Jay had taken the blows Barry had landed cleanly, before the zombie had gotten up to speed, and lost the use of half his torso for what little time it took a speedster to heal. But the Black Light had supported his pulverized flesh and bone, and Jay hadn't missed a step.

How do you stop someone with that powerset? Barry wasn't sure, yet. He could try taking off a leg, but he suspected that the Black Light would just form a construct replacement. It would waste a bit of the revenant's power, but not enough to make it worth committing to something that would require him to dump that much speed into one blow.

For now, keeping Jay busy was enough. If Jay wasn't fighting Barry, Jay would be taking on his friends and Barry had to admit that that would probably go badly. Getting blitzed by a speedster was the sort of thing that turned an entire battle on its head. So Barry traded blows with Jay down the streets of the city, across the bay and back, tearing up the roads with their footfalls. Three times already he'd had to take big risks getting civilians out of harm's way, and Barry was thankful that Jay wasn't all there mentally. If this really was his mentor as he'd been in life, but evil, Jay would have endangered the people around them constantly until Barry made a costly error.

Maybe, Barry thought as he crossed the water for a third time, striking and deflecting strikes from the zombie, he shouldn't be focusing on Jay's weaknesses. Jay had died years ago, and Barry had picked up a few tricks of his own in that time.

Pulling ahead to race up the side of a skyscraper, Barry suddenly turned as their feet struck the edge of the roof, and thrust out his hands. The red lightning that appeared when he really _pushed,_ which he still didn't understand completely, surged around his hands as he reached out and-

The instant Barry touched Jay, the revenant's speed drastically altered, leaving Jay moving at a crawl compared to his former supersonic speed.

External acceleration control, or to use less fancy words, 'stealing speed', was just one of those little things in the package of the Flash's powerset that Barry hadn't really appreciated properly before he started to experiment a little. For catching bullets safely it was pretty useful, but as a speedster it was a _lot_ more energy efficient to speed up yourself than it was to slow your opponent down, and enemy speedsters could fight it if they understood what was happening. But sometimes, sometimes it was perfect.

As Jay began to fall towards the ground below, Barry set to work, easily gaining back the speed he had sacrificed as he ran back down the building, seized a nearby street sign, and ran in a loop around the bay area to build up momentum. Streets to docks to water to docks to street to-

Jay, in black garb, falling towards the ground like the air was made of molasses, thirty feet above the concrete. Barry's hands holding the street sign's metal pole, his form beginning to shine with crackles of red lightning at the edges.

-up the side of the office building, weapon drawn back, it's over in an instant as Barry Allen cleaves the revenant in twain.

Both halves of the body twitch, but Barry doesn't give them a chance to try to come together, and the left side of Jay's form is dropped on the other side of the bay.

Barry allows himself a millisecond for disgust, for panic, for grief, before he blitzes back to help the others.

* * *

Nekron howled with fury as Superman exhaled, freezing hurricane force winds battering him back down into a bed of White Light rosebushes, which tore into him with thorns that did not harm his host's body, but tore at the Black Light within.

Impossible. This was impossible.

He thrashed away at the flowering white plant-life with every weapon he could think of, tearing himself free once more, but always, always were the Life Entity and Superman prepared. The sky was filled with flying creatures of White Light under the Life Entity's command who hounded him and spied upon him, and Superman was ever-ready to take even the slightest weakness on Nekron's part as a chance to force him down to the flora that filled the park below.

Why did the White Light hurt so? He should be able to absorb it, but even before, when he had tried to subsume it in Milwaukee he had struggled. The Black Light overcame the Spectrum of Life! The Green Light of Willpower had certainly been ineffective enough against him as expected. What was this? How had the Life Entity usurped the natural order of the world? The light of life should be incapable of harming the light of death!

No, he would not stand for this. Nekron called forth his power, not in the form of short-lived constructs judiciously chosen to defeat his foe's attacks, but in the form of a thousand nightmares of the dead and dying. Crawling horrors birthed from alien minds, quick-footed insectile swarms, manifestations of darkness and death without name. Let this body fall apart after this battle under the strain of the Black Light, if he won it did not matter what happened to it.

Nekron called forth a shield, defending himself from Superman's heat vision, as his monsters set to their brutal work, tearing into the White Light constructs with the swiftness and surety of the grave and yet-

Yet they fell, their light subsumed, shattering one by one. How-

A small hand touched his back, and as White Light wrapped around him in chains of life, he was gently tilted back to rest on the grassy ground beneath. It should have been brown, dead matter in his presence, yet it was a healthy green, bursting with life.

The Life Entity walked around him, placed a hand above his still heart, and the White Light began to slowly seep into him in ways he could hardly understand.

"We apologize for this chain of events," the Life Entity's host said earnestly. "We failed to bring you to heel before the situation escalated to this stage. Please, take this chance to learn from this experience and grow properly into your true role as the embodiment of the Black Light as we remove you from this plane." The little girl had the temerity to smile at him, like this was nothing, like he had never had a chance.

But, no, he realized slowly. He was not done yet. His enemy was quite literally within his grasp - and there was some of the Black Light that she had not yet bound with inexplicable conceptual strength. He reached out to his revenants and unceremoniously ripped his power free from them, calling it back in a great spear of darkness. Superman called out a warning, but too little, too late, and Nekron threw back his head and laughed as the Black Light construct tore through the body of the Life Entity's host, stilling her blasphemous heart-

"It is important to recognize that the Black Light has meaning _because_ of the Spectrum of Life."

What- no.

No. He must be imagining that stupid little brat's earnest voice. She didn't even have lungs anymore. No, no, no-

"Your role is one of great importance, but death by itself has no meaning. Death is relevant only in the context of life, and it is from this perspective that black is one of the colors of the Glow. You should not consider yourself separate," the Life Entity continued her lecture unperturbed as the spear fizzled away uselessly within her chest. As it shrank away, he could clearly see that the Life Entity was unharmed, her clothes not so much as torn.

No, no, no, no, NO!

"We... do not claim to understand why you have trouble with accepting your place in the universe as of late," the Life Entity said, clearly disappointed, before perking up. "But we will have plenty of time to talk through your problems once your interference in the physical world is over. We have faith in your ability to overcome your flaws and learn to take pride in your true purpose." She smiled at him, hopefully.

Nekron gurgled as he felt his hold on William's form slipping. "H-how?" He managed to gasp out. "Why won't you... just... die!"

"Die?" The Life Entity looked puzzled. "We are an existence of life, of living. The Black Light is as much a part of life as the other colors. We do not understand why you believe dying would affect us in a meaningful fashion." She cocked her head to one side and nodded. "We shall illuminate your ignorance. The White Light is an existence that forever arises. Even if all life in the universe ceased, as some day it will, and all the stars went out, as someday they will, and the universe as an existence ended, as it has before and will again, new existences will come from the emptiness as is the nature of things. In time, new life will arise, as will sentience. And so, killing life is a fundamentally and metaphysically pointless act."

She smiled benevolently down at Nekron, who stared blankly up at the sky. "Please consider this, and your place in existence, until we contact you in your home plane."

And everything was washed away by the white-


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note:

Design notes after this. Hope everyone enjoyed!

* * *

As William Hand, his body a battered ruin from Nekron's carelessness, was carried away on a stretcher by a rather brave group of paramedics in the company of four police officers watching his unconscious form for the slightest twitch of movement, Clark watched Shikako's body let out a sigh.

"We should speak with Alan Scott before returning to the Watchtower," the Life Entity said. "Before that, we must caution you on the appropriate use of the talismans Zatara gave you."

Clark nodded, pulling out the ever-so-faintly black-glowing object.

"While learning from what you encounter is important, we do not recommend attempts to channel either the White Light or the Black Light without careful training in the case of the first, and extreme caution in the case of the second." The Life Entity smiled at him. "Please ensure that you tell the young Green Lantern as much. It may be useful for him to remember that."

"You sound like you know something we don't," Clark said, scrutinizing the girl's face carefully.

"We are, by definition, the most empathic being in existence," the Life Entity informed him. "We do not know the future, but we are very aware of the present state of the universe. We are thankful for your aid, so we do not feel a few words of advice and drops of light are out of place. It will be up to all of you to determine what such things blossom into, if they blossom at all."

"...I have to ask," Clark spoke slowly. "That final strike... you took it on purpose, right? You had plenty of eyes in the sky, so you must have seen it coming."

The Life Entity merely smiled inscrutably, and walked towards the approaching Justice League, beckoning the elderly Green Lantern down to her.

As the bemused man flew over, Clark turned his attention away. Super-senses weren't an excuse to spy on everything.

"I take it everything worked out on your end?" Clark asked Diana as she stopped next to him.

"No, they were... decidedly less of a threat in death than they were in life," Diana admitted. "They were persistent, but..." She shook her head. "We laid them to rest."

Barry zipped around, checking up on everyone. Clark traded a nod with him, before the Flash left- probably to look after Jay's remains, Clark figured. Batman conversed briefly with J'onn before heading in the direction of the two police squad cars that were bracketing the ambulance. Clark was rather impressed with their fortitude. It was their job to show up to things like this, of course, but that didn't mean people always _did._ Seeing them working to protect the world in spite of beings like Nekron was inspiring.

"Well, it seems she was right about not being in any real danger from Nekron," Clark told Diana. "She took a clean hit from him without as much as a scratch..." He frowned. "Seems a little cavalier with Shikako's body in my opinion, but I suppose she knew what she was doing."

"In my experience, beings like that _usually_ do," Diana responded after a moment, looking towards Alan and Shikako. Alan was cradling a small flower of white light in his hands, something visually similar to a lotus blossom. "There are two things you need to watch out for: the things that surprise them, and the fact that they sometimes just don't care about the consequences of their actions."

"...This could have turned out a lot worse," Clark concluded, in agreement with the sentiment. They shared a moment of quiet contemplation.

"I think I'll take Alan to see Cassie while we're in the area," Diana spoke up.

"You've mentioned her before," Clark recalled. "She's Zeus's latest, um..." He floundered a little.

Diana cracked a grin. "Let's go with 'demigod'. Hera was... not pleased, but I've been asked to keep an eye on her now that she's growing into her powers. No one wants her to turn out like Hercules did. Her mother is all for the help, the poor woman is being run ragged trying to wrangle a super-strong eight-year-old that wants to fly everywhere..." She glanced at the elderly Green Lantern again. "I think it would do Alan good to be a little more involved with the new generation; he's been holing himself up in his house a bit too much lately in my opinion."

* * *

"We wish to thank you again for your assistance."

They'd spent a couple of hours helping out emergency services, and the Life Entity had taken a close look at each of the Justice Society members' bodies to make sure Nekron hadn't somehow pulled a fast one, and finally gathered together, along with Zatara, on the Watchtower. Shiho, Chiyako and Hanabi stood off to the side, and only Hanabi managed to put forth any real effort into pretending to not be thoroughly impatient to have their friend back.

"It's what we do," Superman said simply. The Life Entity smiled, and turned to the children.

"Our power exists within this parallel alone," it told them. "You will not lose the ability to comprehend and utilize the English language- though the skill will fade with time as all unpracticed talents do unless you make the effort to retain it- but once you leave this world, the gift of tongues we are currently granting you will no longer allow you to communicate with any sentient being."

"Wait, what?" said Shiho, befuddled, then her eyes somewhat belatedly widened. "So that means... I _thought_ the writing in those books was weird!"

Shikako's face curled into an amused smile as the air around her began to glow brighter.

"Consider the things we have said," she told the Justice League. Superman nodded slowly, while Alan touched the pocket he'd stored the flower in. "We prefer not to interfere with this world, so we expect this will be the last time we speak to you. Though, perhaps..."

She cast a lingering look at Kyle, who blinked back in confusion, but she said nothing more, simply nodding to herself. She spoke one last time-

"Live well."

-and the white light poured out of Shikako's body, vanishing into the ether.

Shikako blinked several times, muttered something about stars, sunk to her knees, and toppled, as the other children from Konoha rushed to steady her in panic...

...only to relax as she began to snore gently.

"Geeze," Shiho complained as she carried Shikako over to the couch. "That thing could have warned us. ...So troublesome."

Chiyako giggled, and Hanabi rolled her eyes at her.

"What? What's so funny?"

* * *

"You're moving a bit easier," Diana noted.

Alan grinned. "I'm still an old fogey, but I'm not too proud to turn down an offer to fix my arthritis problems."

"Is that what the flower does?"

He hummed, shaking his head. "No, she gave me a little tune up. As for the flower... I'm just... holding onto that for the moment. If that kid blossoms into something really special, I'll pass it on."

"Kid?" Diana asked, but Alan just shook his head.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "If nothing else, it's still a pretty flower, so it isn't like it's a waste if it doesn't happen. She didn't want to put any pressure on him about it, so I'll keep quiet like she asked."

* * *

"I don't see any obvious ill effects," Zatara told her. "But, you understand this will likely happen again in the future if you do not learn to prevent it? Not the same entity perhaps, but there are always creatures looking for ways to effect the material world, and currently you might as well be an open doorway."

"Yes," Shikako admitted. "This is the second time I've been possessed actually, but... I was so busy and I thought I could get to it later, so I put off the training. I didn't think that it would happen again."

Stupid, really. Gelel was probably one of a kind due to the unique circumstances that had led to its creation, but there were other things out there. She had just assumed that sage training was something she could put off, do a little later when she had the time. She had really been considering it a valuable force multiplier rather than a necessity… Foolish. If you can't control your power, it can hurt you. And she had only narrowly avoided being burnt.

"Do not train alone," the magician warned strictly. "You could suffer a fate worse than death if you welcome the wrong things into yourself. You need someone who can separate you from the energy pouring into you when things go wrong. And things _will_ go wrong, and more than once. I fear it will not be easy for you, though it is very much necessary."

"There is an order of monks in my country. A sage recommended that I go study with them when I was ready to learn," Shikako told the man quietly. "I wasn't ready at the time. I think I am now."

 _Countless voices raised in silent songs. Each a symphony in themselves…_

Yes. She had learned a lot of lessons these past few days. Back when Gelel had flowed through her, she had been swept away by it all. She'd almost dissolved in the flow of life, her ego nearly erased. It was different this time. Gelel hadn't had the type of cosmic understanding that the Life Entity did. It had been smaller. It had been the air. The earth. It wasn't meant to think, to feel.

She had learned a different lesson back then. That Shikamaru would cling to her in the face of any danger, that he considered her special and his and loved and would fight a god for her… and it hadn't really made things better. She'd been damaged by it, scraped raw by Gelel and her brief death and she had survived, but she hadn't really dealt with it well.

She hadn't really learnt anything from Gelel itself. It hadn't been sentient in the same way the Life Entity had been. It had just poured through her body, her mind, her very soul, like an ocean draining through a hole, and she had nearly been washed out to sea in the process.

 _We were stars…_

She understood better now.

She'd been so very lucky the first two times. She wouldn't wait around for a third.

* * *

"I do appreciate you letting us stay here for the time being," Shikako said to Clark.

He smiled. "We aren't about to kick you kids out, especially after how much you helped us."

Shikako raised an eyebrow. "I can't really take credit for any of that," she said.

"Who knows how Nekron's plans would have progressed without you being here?" Clark mused. "Your presence in this world saved a lot of lives, even if it wasn't planned on your part."

The girl weighed the thought, and nodded. Superficially, Clark had to admit, she had a lot in common with the elemental that had possessed her. Her mannerisms, her somewhat blank-faced politeness, her calm surety... It made him wonder if Shikako had had more influence on the Life Entity than it had let on.

"Let one of us know if you need anything," Clark told her. "Reference materials, resources, help getting places..."

"Thank you," the little ninja smiled up at him. "I think we have what we need for the next few days, at least, though..."

"Yes?"

"Well, I have a lot of travel rations, but I think Chiyako and Hanabi would prefer something a little less... travel ration-like at this point," she admitted.

Clark chuckled. "That we can certainly manage."

* * *

Shiho sighed in frustration as she flipped through a calculus text to look something up, causing Shikako to look up from her work.

"You do know that you aren't obligated to keep going with this anymore?" Shikako checked. "...I'm really sorry about dropping that on you," she said somewhat belatedly.

"I'm not doing it because I have to," Shiho replied. "And... sorry I couldn't get you unpossessed."

"You looked after Chiyako and Hanabi. That's what I really wanted," Shikako assured her. "So why are you getting Wonder Woman to load you up with science books, then? You're really going at it. I can't say I ever took you for the type."

"...I couldn't do anything," Shiho eventually told her. "I'm a good cryptographer. A really good one. But, that's it. I'm terrible at fighting, I don't know hardly anything useful outside of my specialty, I'm not even that great at the non-codebreaking parts of intelligence..." She looked at the scroll she'd filled with a small library. "But I can read this language. And, maybe I'm not as good as you, but I _am_ learning this stuff, even if it's slowly. Back in Konoha, only the four of us can read this language, and Chiyako and Hanabi are just kids and you... well," she waved her hands at Shikako vaguely. "This stuff... maybe it isn't useful things for ninja to know most of the time. But sometimes it _is_ helpful, and I can learn it. This is something I can do. So, maybe I'm not the type. But... I think I want to be."

* * *

As Mera dismissed her students for the day, she was surprised to see Wonder Woman waiting for her outside the classroom.

"Diana? My goodness, I apologize. If you needed me, you could have interrupted," the atlantean sorceress said. "We weren't doing anything that we couldn't have picked back up later."

The amazon, however, shook her head. "I'm not here as an ambassador for Themyscira coming to speak to the Queen of Atlantis," she told Aquaman's wife. "Rather, I'm here on behalf of the Justice League. I'm hoping to round out our numbers a little."

"It isn't really viable for my husband to devote a significant portion of his time to your activities," Mera explained. "As a head of state, he has a lot of responsibilities that he simply can't delegate."

"Your husband is certainly powerful," Diana said with a smile. "But, I'm more looking to fill gaps in the skillsets our team has. I figured speaking to the headmistress of Atlantis's Conservatory of Sorcery was the best thing to do when trying to recruit a mage. If you aren't interested, I figured you could at least give me good recommendations."

Mera considered it. Her children were both in school now, so she had more free time than before, and helping safeguard the world was a very worthy endeavor...

"While you think about it, would you care for a girl's night out? We can go trawling for pirates." Diana offered.

Mera chuckled. "Well, I can't let you have _all_ the fun..."

* * *

"What was it like?" Chiyako asked innocently as Shikako prodded her into getting ready to go to sleep. Hanabi hissed at her, and dug an elbow into her side. Chiyako just pouted at her. She was so young. Chiyako thought that, because it was over, it didn't... didn't really affect her now. Shikako wasn't quite willing to tell her the truth of the matter.

"Well, I remember what I saw and heard and so on," Shikako said slowly, "but it didn't really see the world that way. It was... like as far as it was concerned the things it could see with my eyes and hear with my ears were something to help it pay attention to the right bits of the universe, but the things that really mattered were... were people's hearts and minds. I can't really... I couldn't hold on to the things I don't have corresponding senses for, but it was like... Rage was red like blood, and willpower was green like leaves and... and I can name the colors, but that wasn't it. Not really. The colors were just how I could think about them, but there was so much more to it than I could grasp."

And, though she didn't continue to speak out loud, because there were some things she didn't think little children were ready to hear wasn't sure that anyone was, even herself, the experience had been...

It was a being that had all of the empathy in the universe, that felt everyone's rage and suffering, all the hopes and fears and wills, and even all the love and compassion in the universe, and was absolutely certain that those feelings were more important than anything else in existence... yet not the slightest bit of sympathy. It didn't feel like there was any reason to intervene, any reason to lessen all of the suffering and death in the universe. It had been polite, and even something approaching kind, because Shikako had thought there was real practical value to that, rather than any genuine regard for the people around her. It had thought of people almost like Shikako thought of fireflies dancing under an autumn moon. It was beautiful and precious, those little lights, but they would all die soon enough and the thought didn't bother her at all. Even the thought of the universe itself ending, of the Life Entity dissipating until something new arose in its place with new life, that hadn't been a cause for alarm. That was just how things worked.

She couldn't help but shiver at the thought. She wasn't like that. That creature, giving out little gifts that might mean something someday and fixing little problems because they were right in front of Shikako's eyes and that almost made the suffering she saw something to be _dealt_ with rather than something that just _was..._ It hadn't been _evil._ It didn't do anything Shikako considered _wrong._ It just didn't _get_ it. Maybe it understood the universe better than her, but there were things that it simply couldn't grasp. Yes, perhaps it was reassuring to know that, even if they lost and were trapped in Madara's power until the end of the world, that wouldn't be the end. There was life out there in the universe, and after the end of the universe there would be more.

Life would go on, though every life would someday end.

But the lives of the people Shikako cared about - those mattered in ways that the Life Entity didn't understand. They were stars in the sky of the heart, and each had a flame whose warmth was vital to the people around them. Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Shikamaru... all her friends, all her allies, and even all her foes, they mattered.

And Shikako mattered, too. She hadn't really been close to Shiho, Chiyako and Hanabi before. They were people she knew and cared about to an extent, yet... yet she'd been so important to them. And to the Justice League as well, though they hadn't known her at all. She'd just been a little girl who they thought needed their help, and they thought that was all there was to it. And maybe they were right.

She looked down on the blue planet below them. It was beautiful, and her world was beautiful too. Both the planet and the people. She hadn't really done anything more than be here, yet she'd helped save this world. Just being there, and trying her hardest, and the help of the people around her... Maybe it was enough to save her world, too.

* * *

"Thank you for helping Shiho," Shikako said with a slight bow.

Diana waved it off. "I did very little. She's a strong young lady, all of you are."

As Shikako politely replied, Diana took the opportunity to have a good look at her. She acted quite a lot like the Life Entity had, but there was a… genuineness was not quite right. The Life Entity had always meant what it said, it just hadn't paid any real heed to the feelings of the people it was interacting with. Shikako was different in that regard.

"So I understand you are a specialist of some form?" Diana queried, interested to learn more about the young ninja.

"Tokubetsu jounin," Shikako nodded. "I'm not well-rounded enough to be promoted to the full jounin rank, but my skills in my niche are of the appropriate level."

"At your age, it's quite impressive that you've managed to become so recognized," Diana noted. "I've been told your combat capabilities are quite good, but I would assume it is your sealing abilities that earned you the promotion? Your knowledge in that area seems to be exceptional with the progress you've made towards returning home."

Shikako giggled. "Oh, no. If I'd taken a promotion into a specialty that stuck me behind a desk permanently I would go crazy. I need to stay in the field. My specialization is actually tracking."

"Really?" Diana was honestly surprised. "Shiho never mentioned anything about that."

"It's not truly my strongest skill, though I'm quite good at it. But," Shikako admitted sheepishly, "it was actually a little bit of interdepartmental warfare that got me promoted so quickly. Research and Development wanted me, but I was more interested in staying in the field and Sensory Squad offered me a promotion… What about you? What got you involved with all of this?"

"As a champion of my goddesses, I seek to serve them and my people. However, Themyscira is a land of strong immortals, and beyond that a not insignificant number of them are demigods. It is a rare day when my homeland truly requires my strength," Diana explained. "As such, I act in the world outside our island home to defend the world and defeat evil. I am given to understand that the political situation is somewhat more complex for Konoha?"

"The Village system that is currently in place is very new in a lot of ways," Shikako said simply. "Things are tense. I can only hope that our safe return will prevent things from escalating further towards war." She bowed again. "Once more, thank you for our help."

"It was my pleasure," Diana demurred. A rather excellent deflection. Shikako was a lot more cautious about what information she shared than Shiho was. Yet, Shikako seemed even more comfortable around the Justice League than her companions did. A combination of knowledge gained during her possession and greater combat ability, most likely.

Still, a new, unstable political system, was it? She thought back over Earth's history. Such things often ended badly. Yet, sometimes it turned out well in the end. There was no way she could speculate with as little as she knew of Konoha.

It was a terrible thing when a society turned children that young into soldiers. But they were good kids, who protected each other and held dear many of the same values Diana did. And they weren't helpless victims thrust into the horrors of war. Konoha had treated them better than that at the very least. They hadn't even been tempted to stay on Earth.

It wasn't her place to change how their world worked. She could only be thankful that their home had its virtues as well as its flaws.

* * *

"You know," Shiho said very quietly to Shikako, late one night. "When you say that the entity stopped you from being hurt from a black light spear through your chest... when those ninja attacked us when all of this started... I could have sworn that I saw..."

Shikako's body cleaved apart by swords, yet unwounded. At ground zero of a terrible blast, yet remaining whole. Tired, yet completely unharmed. Not even her clothes had been torn.

"Was that the elemental or..."

Shikako blinked at her, her features might as well have been porcelain for all the hints they gave away.

Shiho shook her head. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

Really, Shikako was strong, but... thinking she might have survived Nekron's strike because of some form of immortality or immunity to harm rather than the Life Entity's conceptual immunity to Nekron's death powers... Silly. She knew that Shikako had been in the hospital a lot, and surely that wouldn't be the case if her wild imaginings were right.

The next day, Shiho watched as Shikako drew a little blood for use in testing her ability to summon again (still no luck) and shook her head. Really, what had she been thinking?

* * *

The pole entered the small gateway, and returned. Unharmed, this time. She wasn't quite ready to test it with a living being, but...

"Come help me write a message home," she called to the others with a smile.

She didn't need the help, but it got them involved and felt like progress. Was progress. They were going home soon.

* * *

The air above the Nara kitchen table _pulsed-_

-and a scroll bounced down onto the table below.

They were ninja. Naturally, the entire area was soon swarming with more ninjas, and someone much more than disposable than the Jounin Commander and his family eventually rolled the scroll open with a ten foot pole, and read it with a pair of binoculars.

Then the intelligence division got to work.

Finally, most of a day later, it was concluded that it probably was Shikako and the other missing girls, and they hadn't left any obvious signs of duress or anything. She'd included time and coordinates for her first return attempts in a few days' time. And a 'request' for someone she trusted and recognized to be there with the welcoming party, because she'd had to kill a bunch of ANBU-lookalikes and would most definitely stab first and ask questions later if she felt the welcoming party was more of a 'welcoming' party. Tsunade had more of a problem trying to keep there from being _too_ many people Shikako would trust and recognize in the welcoming party in case this _was_ a trap.

The whole situation was one giant pain in the ass, Tsunade felt, and the gibbering from the idiots who were _supposed_ to be working the desks in the mission room instead of being a bunch of nerveless wrecks wasn't helping.

* * *

"Thank you again for everything," Shikako said, bowing towards the Justice League. "I really appreciate everything you've done for us."

"Good luck back home," Diana smiled at them. "And... remember that coming back is always an option. You have plenty of friends here."

The little ninjas waved goodbye as Shikako reached down and activated the gate-

-and with a _pulse_ , the clearing was only occupied by the superheroes.

"I hope things work out," Flash muttered.

"It will," Superman said with conviction. "Just... I don't know, call it a good feeling. They know what they're doing."

* * *

"Mah, mah. You're late."

"Sorry, sensei. Got lost on the road of life."


	9. Design Notes

Author's Note:

So, as promised, here's some of my design stuff for the plot and characters, as well as some musings and potential scenes that didn't really cut it. Enjoy!

* * *

When I started planning this, it was basically a really vague idea. I was frequenting the We're All Dreaming of Sunshine forum on this site fairly regularly, and there had been a lot of Marvel crosses in the crossovers thread, and some interesting speedster!Shikako snippets for Young Justice that I'd pitched in on tossing ideas around for, but no real DC crosses worth noting other than that. I'd been thinking about this a little, and had some very basic stuff planned out: Cloud trying a kidnapping, dumping four ninjas (I'd already chosen Hanabi, Shikako, Chiyako, and Shiho) into a DC universe… and that was pretty much it. I hit a wall.

I also had a vague idea that I wanted to do something with the Life Entity and Shikako but I didn't want to have to deal with the huge amount of characters and plot from DC canon's Blackest Night and Brightest Day storylines. I didn't initially see how this could be combined with the prior plotline.

On page 102 of the DoS Crossover Plotting thread, I tossed the (very little) I had out into the ether and nothing came of it immediately. It wasn't an idea that seemed to resonate with anyone, though authors did turn their attention to a number of DC crosses featuring Shikako becoming Batman's first Robin.

Through some burst of inspiration, or perhaps ignited by the frustration that authors pretend not to have when other people don't write our stories for us and let us enjoy reading them without doing any work, something clicked into place and I wrote the first chapter of this story up.

So what was it that made this work? Well, I basically decided that I liked Nekron and the Life Entity, but threw out the entire Blackest Night plotline, didn't involve the Green Lantern cast except for Kyle Rayner, and reimagined Nekron and the Life Entity as extremely powerful elementals who embodied the Black Light of Death and the White Light of Life, and lived on their respective elemental planes. Now that I'd simplified their mythology, I just grabbed the idea and ran with it.

* * *

Let's talk about the characters for a bit.

The interesting thing about the Justice League is how much they have in common, character-wise, yet still are very different. All of them are idealists that genuinely believe their work makes a difference in the world, and though they all had different reasons for getting into the superhero business, they share similar morals and are optimistic about the future they are helping safeguard. So what are the differences?

Batman thinks of himself as Batman. He likes to plan for the worst, not because he expects it, but because he knows that it sometimes happens and believes in his ability to prevent it by being careful. Likes to keep an image as a stoic, loner badass because he thinks it helps him maintain the effectiveness of his solo vigilante work, but actually has a larger social network than everyone but Wonder Woman, who has been around pretty much forever. Likes children, though he isn't sure whether he wants to have any himself. Really doesn't like guns, not only because of his personal experiences, but also because they make it too easy to kill people, even by accident. Being Batman is like breathing to him.

Wonder Woman is the old granny of the superhero community and knows it. She's been in the business longer than anyone else, and has a very different social background. While not quick to resort to killing, being a strong believer in the value of mercy, she has done so in the past and will do so again if she has to and knows it. (Most of the others _think_ they _might_ if _absolutely_ necessary, and do everything in their power to avoid it, but J'onn is the only other one who has actually had to.) Has a tendency to mother people she takes a liking to. She's the team's rock. Being Wonder Woman is a, largely self-appointed, duty that she takes pride in.

Superman doesn't know the limits of his own strength. He's never come up short yet, but he's very much aware that the day will probably come when his invulnerability will face something that it just can't handle. The first time he stepped in front of a gun, he was legitimately afraid that the bullet might kill him. He did it anyway. He's the team's heart, and the others tend to look to him for guidance even though the Justice League doesn't really have a leader. Being Superman is how he decided to make a stand for the things he believes in.

Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) used to be a rookie, but now has confidence in his abilities. Actively cultivates and employs his creativity whenever possible, because he considers it to be his greatest strength. Believes that his job means he will always keep running into the most horrible facets of the universe. He's right. He believes that this lets him make the universe a better place, and that the work he does is meaningful. He's right about that, too. Defers to the rest of the team, especially Superman. Being Green Lantern is a job to him. It's an important job that he takes pride in, but as far as he is concerned he's working in law enforcement rather than being a vigilante.

Martian Manhunter had to kill a crook to save his senior partner's life when he was a rookie cop on Mars. For a telepath, this is naturally a traumatic experience. But where others might have given up or flinched back, he accepted it and pressed forward, determining that he would advance his abilities to the point where he would never need to do the same thing again. He considers the ability to be merciful to any enemy reliant on his own strength. He's never had to take a life in the line of duty since. Has taken to Earth as his new home and tried to adapt. He's succeeded at the 'reading minds is an invasion of privacy' thing, but that hasn't done wonders for his social competence. Still working on body language and vocal intonation. He goes by Martian Manhunter because it just seems to be a thing that heroes on Earth do? It's not a disguise or anything, it's basically him just saying that he's an officer of the law from Mars.

The Flash likes to inject levity into conversation to serve as social lubricant, in part because super-speed makes awkward silences even more hellish than normal. Takes his superheroing really seriously, though he doesn't always act like it. He considers it a calling, and treats being the Flash as if it means he's part of a knightly order; he didn't claim the title until Jay Garrick said it was his, and that was the proudest moment of his life. Likes children, and he and his wife Iris plan on having them in the near future.

Additionally:

Green Lantern (Alan Scott) wrote the book on willpower, and considers it his greatest strength. Once he decides to do something, he does it. He's not the best physically, these days, but he's come to terms with a lot of the things that troubled him during his younger years which means he's probably better with his ring... but it's hard to tell, because he was always damn impressive. Was looking forward to living out his twilight years in peace, then going on to eternal rest and seeing all his loved ones in heaven, but recent events have lit a fire under him.

Chiyako Aburame wants to be awesome. She wants to be able to protect the people she cares about, have the fortitude to face both good times and bad with strength, and a Will of Fire to drive back the evil things in the world and set them on fire and make sure they never harm anyone ever again. Metaphorically. She's super nice, and would never dream of actually setting someone on fire. She might kill someone, but she'll never want them to be in pain. She's a bit of a crybaby, but she's very reliable: she'll never leave a friend in need wanting, no matter what inner turmoil she might be going through. Idolizes Shikako very obviously and unashamedly. By far the most childish of the mini-ninjas.

Hanabi Hyuuga wants to have enough strength to be kind. She doesn't think you can afford to present anything less than your strongest face unless you have other, more practical, varieties of strength to ensure you can't be taken advantage of and hurt. She's growing into a more nuanced position on the subject as she gets socialization outside of her clan. Very protective of the things and people that she cares about, like her sister (and much more recently, Chiyako). Thinks that the Caged Bird Seal is a sign of weakness on the part of the Main House, and wishes there was a less evil version that could be applied to everyone in the clan so the kidnapping attempts would stop (please, please, please stop). Thinks the world of her sister, and thinks that if Hinata just stood up for herself a little more, everyone else would also agree that Hinata is amazing. Respects Shikako because Hinata respects her, initially, now respects her and is grateful to her because of recent events. Is not nearly as grown up as she likes to pretend.

Shiho wants to be safe and useful. She's not jealous of the jounin-track ninja, but... it's more like she used to take them and what they did for the village for granted. She had a role which she was good at and was important and she never had to actually be in any danger but still got the benefits of being part of the military. That said, takes Konoha's ideals very much to heart. It never occurred to her to not try to protect Chiyako and Hanabi - they were children of Konoha and she was a ninja, so she would absolutely die for them if she had to. By most standards, she's actually a badass - she'd cut her way through most baseline normals with minimal difficulty. She's just really, really outclassed by the people around her. Her main problem with the current situation is that she isn't _useful._ The skills she's cultivated are totally inapplicable here, and she's desperate to be helpful in some fashion.

Shikako Nara doesn't have time spend on being scared. She has to keep moving, keep working, keep as many people alive as possible, make them as strong as possible, get as many of them as possible to work together. She has so little time. Less than three years now. We have to be ready. We have to save the world. (She stopped to help Chiyako just because she was a little girl who needed somebody, anybody, to be there and she decided that she would be that person. She protects the people she cares about. She has a strong moral code. She's a good person. But she's so damaged already... somebody needs to give this girl a hug.) She's a legitimate genius in many areas. Which is useful, because I can have her create a trans-universal portal in like two weeks and nobody questions it. And she's a combat specialist who focuses on shadows and sealing and high-impact ninjutsu which really means that she can make anything she touches explode in a variety of ways. Can transform into living shadow, and has learned to keep an illusion up that lets her appear to still be normal. From an outside point of view this occasionally makes her look like some sort of horror movie child.

* * *

Elementals 101:

Nekron and the Life Entity are major characters in this story. You get to see a lot of Nekron's thinking process, but I decided to keep what was driving the Life Entity a little more ambiguous. Writers are tricksy fiends that like making their audience figure things out. It makes us feel clever.

Before I explain about what was up with the Life Entity, a brief discussion about elemental psychology, all of which I more or less made up on the spot when I started this fanfic. People who read carefully probably guessed some or all of this, so keep score if you want to feel smart!

Elementals can be thought of as a sentient piece of reality shorn of all mitigating influence. They aren't rational actors as we understand it. Their mentality revolves around their source. In Chapter Three the Life Entity used the phrase 'in life's name and for life's sake'. In addition to being a shout-out to _Young Wizards_ this is a good way to think about elemental reasoning.

That's how elementals think - they entirely base their actions on their source. The Life Entity preserves, nourishes and propagates life, because life. A fire elemental does the same thing for fire, because fire. They aren't rational actors, and don't let yourself be fooled into thinking the Life Entity has anything approaching a conventional system of morals; its interests merely tend to align with ours. Fire doesn't have to be evil to cause you pain.

But Nekron is conventionally evil in a lot of ways. He's going out of his way to twirl his Snidely Whiplash moustache as he heads off to murder every person in the universe. This isn't exactly standard elemental behavior. A fire elemental that burns a planet to ashes would be legitimately puzzled if you tried to explain why it shouldn't have done that, then probably set you on fire. Not because you insulted it; that's just what it is, what it does.

Elementals gain existence and power from thought. They are conceptual beings, and can't exist without concepts and thus without sentient beings. They more or less run the gamut from 'dumb as a brick' to 'hard to say it isn't sapient' depending on what their concept is, and Nekron and the Life Entity, who exist due to the birth and death of sentient life, are right at the top of the heap. (Order elementals tend to be pretty smart, but inflexible, while chaos elementals are mediocre but very flexible, in case you were wondering about Nabu.) Like all sentient beings, they have free will and self-determination; however, their value systems kind of keep them stuck in mental pigeonholes most of the time.

Recently, something mentally unbalanced Nekron, knocking him out of his normal mindset (which is why a being that's existed for billions of years is only doing this now). If I kept this story going, this would be something to follow up on, but since I'm not… um, maybe it could be Darkseid deciding to summon Nekron for a chat? Anyway, Nekron decided that he wasn't happy just hanging around in the Elemental Plane of Death anymore, he wanted to go out and kill people. He feels very entitled; shouldn't death be able to end all life? That's kind of what he's thinking.

The Life Entity is kind of a sanctimonious ass, to be honest. They've got this whole non-interference thing going, always claim to know what's going on better than anyone else, have absolutely no sympathy for other people's problems... To be fair, it usually is right, it causes fewer problems than almost every other elemental in existence, and it is on the side of the heroes of the story. That doesn't make it _nice_. (Nekron is going to be getting lots of therapy from it. Nekron doesn't have a choice. The Life Entity is helping. The Life Entity is _never_ going to shut up until Nekron listens to it. There's nothing Nekron can do to stop it, and he knows this.)

I made a point of never having the Life Entity tell a lie. That doesn't mean it explained things clearly. This was part of my design philosophy for it.

How elementals interact with the world:

Through people. They can tie themselves to objects (like Nabu and the Helmet of Fate) but they can't act without a person, because they need a link between the conceptual and the physical. Typically this works out very badly. It's kind of a 'don't call up what you can't put down' sort of thing. It's a lot harder to get rid of one than it is to summon one.

In Chapter 4 I suggested that things could have gone… very badly. Zatara was seriously worried going into this, though he kept his composure. As for the line about fertility spirits and the like... whatever you are imagining, Zatara's experiences are probably worse. When you shorn a concept of all reason and unleash it upon the universe, it will absolutely to incredibly horrible things. Shikako is insanely lucky in how this whole thing turns out. Some varieties of life elemental would, for example, give everything in their radius horrific cancers or something. It's just what such creatures do. And Shikako might have thought it was worth that sort of thing if it stopped Nekron. She might even be right, as horrible as the thought is. But, there's a reason he wasn't as worried about the death elemental. There are much worse things than just dying in the magic business.

It is also possible, though requiring specific circumstances and a lot of effort, for an elemental to interact with the world by answering those who desire a bit of their power – but interacting with people like this gets very _complicated_. Before you know it you're answering priests rather than magicians, and their worship is actually shaping you over a couple hundred or thousand years and eventually you aren't really an elemental anymore. Not all gods come about like this (some are created in the same way the Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40k was, for example, among other possibilities) but some do.

How much a host influences the elemental:

Elementals aren't well-rounded beings. I'll come right out and say that the Life Entity had, most notably, no idea how to socialize or employ tactics in battle. It knows what people are thinking and feeling, but it's missing the ability to really put that together in a useful fashion. Since it doesn't interfere with the physical world, it never had cause or reason to learn. But Shikako's brain was right there, and it could just use her to fill in the blanks. There's a reason that the way Nekron got crushed mentally and physically in the last battle was a very ninja-like plan, and that's because it was pretty much Shikako thinking it up. To be clear, Shikako had no real agency while the Life Entity was using her as a meat suit, but she definitely colored the Life Entity's actions and even its priorities.

Nekron is in truth much less reliant on William Hand, though he does need William's body. Nekron is intimately knowledgeable about moments of death, and thus is a halfway decent fighter, planner, and can even fake being sociable. It helps that Nekron is much more interested in the physical plane than the Life Entity and has made an effort to expand his horizons.

But the host is largely just a vehicle for them. They focused on using their own powers and their host's physical capabilities, and there was only one point in the story where the Life Entity used Shikako's own powers: to completely nullify Nekron's final strike, allowing the Life Entity to utterly crush Nekron's belief in his superiority over her.

Nekron's final strike:

Nekron could never have damaged the White Light in any meaningful fashion - he could have, if things went _absolutely completely perfectly_ for him, _maybe_ dissipated _that version_ of the Life Entity, though another one would have arisen more or less immediately. He could have done a lot of damage and killed a lot of people. And by a lot, I mean that if things went well he could have probably depopulated a galaxy or two before a sufficiently powerful force could come together and crush him. Most worlds would be lucky to have even a handful of Justice League level combatants. (William's body is his real limiter. If his host had been a Malthusian or something things would absolutely have gone more the route of the Blackest Night storyline.) It would be wrong to say that Nekron wasn't a threat, though he was never the _kind_ of threat he wanted to be. He could certainly have _hurt_ the Life Entity with that last attack (which the Life Entity let hit to prove a point), if it hadn't taken steps, though killing it was more or less a lost cause at that point.

But Shikako's shadow transformation technique easily prevented her from suffering real harm. She probably still would have lost a decade or two off her lifespan or something like that without being suffused with the White Light, but she was physically unharmed. (The Life Entity thought it itched a little.)

* * *

The Justice Society:

I don't recall when I decided they were going to have a role; I guess it was kind of inevitable what with Nekron's necromancy thing. I mean, who would have cared if Axis Amerika was turned into zombies? Maybe the Justice League would have felt extra justified about punching them in the face or something. And at least some of the audience is familiar with some of the JSA.

Alan Scott was always going to be alive. I don't read comics much these days, but I did read the JSA Darkness Falls storyline years back and the finale of the battle with Obsidian really stuck with me. That's one reason part of the story was set in Milwaukee, if you're wondering. Early on, I wasn't sure how I was actually going to get rid of the Life Entity at the end of the story, before I realized that its characterization more or less required it leaving on its own if I wanted to be consistent. I toyed with the idea of continuing the grand tradition of Alan Scott and other JSA heroes conveniently getting de-aged and heading off to new adventures, and the Life Entity would have been a good vehicle for that…

But Alan's getting on in years and doesn't really want to put off seeing his old friends and loved ones again for another three or four decades or something. He's not going to put the Ring away after this, and I imagine he'll be more involved with the newest generation, but he's definitely transitioning into a mentor-type character with Diana's encouragement.

When I was writing what became Chapter Four, I seriously considered playing coy about who the old man was. I would have left hints, but I could have made Alan's inevitable dynamic entry into the fight with Nekron (and perhaps the identity of the revenants) surprising. As clever as this would have made me feel, I decided against it because it would have required me to end with Alan fleeing the cemetery, which would have grossly misrepresented his character to an audience that might not have known better. It would have just ended up being a mess, and I decided that I should just be true to the characters rather than try to pull something clever and inevitably mess up.

If you're wondering what the current fates of the JSA members are, here's the long list:

Died and left bodies behind, got zombified by Nekron: Wesley Dodds (Sandman), Ted Knight (the original Starman), Kent Nelson (Doctor Fate), Charles McNider (Doctor Mid-Nite), Jason "Jay" Garrick (the original Flash), and Carter Hall (Hawkman).

Of the others, Albert "Al" Pratt (the original Atom) and Terrence "Terry" Sloane (the original Mr. Terrific) were killed in ways that left no remains, Dinah Drake-Lance (the original Black Canary) and Ted Grant (Wildcat) are alive but quite geriatric (and Dinah's cancer prognosis isn't looking good), Rex Tyler (the original Hourman) was trapped in a region of frozen time to save his life, Abigail "Ma" Hunkel (the original Red Tornado) is the curator of the JSA museum in her old age, Jim Corrigan (the Spectre) was released from his duties and his soul has gone on to eternal peace (no one is entirely sure what happened to the body) and we've already seen what's become of Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern) and Diana of Themyscira (Wonder Woman).

Johnny Thunder wasn't part of the JSA because I can't think of any reasonable way to not have a character with super luck and an all-powerful genie not break the entire setting in half. (To be fair, DC couldn't manage it well either.)

* * *

Kyle Rayner as a White Lantern:

Well, it happened in DC canon, and the possibility was obliquely suggested at several points in this story. In-universe, the potential kick-off for this will be coming up soon after his arrival on Oa after the events of this story. It isn't a guaranteed thing, but it's likely enough that the Life Entity bothered leaving that flower with Alan.

I'm not sure how it would play out, because I really haven't given much thought to the Guardians of the Universe in this universe, and they'd play a rather large role in the story. The more sane and effective the Guardians are portrayed as, the more likely Kyle is to feel that staying part of the Corps will allow him to do more good than heading off on a quest to master the full Spectrum – so if I portray the Guardians positively, there would need to be a pressing danger forcing Kyle down this path.

The crux of the storyline would be a question of how important his humanity is to him. Being able to use one Ring already separates him mentally from those around him, but Green is the color that least changes him. Wielding each Light is a devastating psychological blow from one direction or another, and it would become clear that if he continues down this path he would become a very different person than he was at the beginning… Or die in the process. Or worse.

If he actually gets to the point where he uses the White Light, he wouldn't be back to normal. He'd be something else.

Were I to actually write that storyline out, I'm honestly not sure that I'd have him go through with it.

* * *

What the ninjas got from this:

Character development, some science books, and potentially someplace to try to run away to if everything goes to hell back home. I briefly toyed with the idea that Shikako might get something more than that, but it was never really likely. This experience changed Shikako, and somewhat for the better. She'll have to achieve the rest on her own.

* * *

Other thoughts:

As a result of the 'extremely orthodox magic missile' line from Chapter 5, I find that I now headcanon this version of Superman as a tabletop gamer. Like, maybe when he was in college he found that sports weren't his thing because he had to hold back too much, and he got into the tabletop RPG thing to socialize and found he liked stretching his creative muscles. These days, he tends to take the Dungeon Master role, and runs very inventive but somewhat fiendish campaigns that require players to really come together as a team to succeed. I wonder where he gets his source material from...

He tried getting the Justice League into it once, but the Queen of Fables (Wonder Woman villain with story powers) got involved and nobody talks about that week anymore.

It didn't really fit into the story, but he's going to have a foolish enemy sorcerer screw up a summoning in his next campaign. If the players fail to stop his chant before it finishes, the spell will appear to fizzle, but the character closest to the ritual circle will actually be possessed after a certain amount of time unless they manage to realize what is happening to them and take steps/pass a difficult will save. But even then, they'll have to hurry to figure out a way to stop it from coming back. If an enemy NPC is closest to the circle and manages to survive, he can try to spin them into a recurring villain. Clark figures it'll be a good subplot if it works out.

Another thing I might have added, but didn't, was a scene wherein the JSA members had their ashes interred. But I figure it would probably take a while to repair the cemetery, cremate the bodies, gather everyone for a ceremony… and then I figure a lot of readers would be left wondering who all these people were and why I was introducing them in the epilogue.

I could have added a bunch of stuff to the epilogue, probably, but I wanted to strike a balance between not tying up all the loose ends and bloating it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

* * *

The ending:

I thought carefully about what I wanted the last lines to be. I wanted to wrap it up neatly and not have to continue for any significant length of time once they went home, yet also assure the readers that everything worked out okay.

So, Kakashi's there. Shikako's safe. Everything is going to be alright.

I think, from the reception, that I got that part right.

* * *

In conclusion:

Before editing, this project was about 28,000 words long, and took me a week from start to finish. After editing, more like 34,000 excluding these design notes. I went into this with the goal of writing a story that was for the most part complete and self-contained, and indeed the events herein drew to a close with Shikako's return home. Shikako stayed in the DC universe long enough that I could probably have stuck another short episode in there, but I had already told the story I was aiming to tell. Any further adventures are the product of speculation, and not something I'm currently planning to expand (though anyone interested is welcome to try).

This is the first full-length story arc I've written in years, and I'm pleased with the reception, especially since if you actually describe what fandom this falls under it sounds really, really niche. Anyone with further questions, just log in and leave a review so I can get back to you, or else send me a PM. Everyone who has read this far, thank you for your interest!

I'll dig out my notes on Graceful Degradation next weekend; hopefully I'll have some more of that for you before the end of the summer. Sorry for leaving everyone hanging indefinitely on that.

Finally, I'd like to thank Silver Queen for letting other authors play with her characters.


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